Lexia® Chief Learning Officer Dr. Liz Brooke interviews Emily Hanford, education journalist and host of “Sold A Story,” and Dr. Tiffany Hogan, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, about Hanford’s 2022 groundbreaking podcast series exposing decades’ worth of failed strategies to teach children to read. They discuss the intense national reaction to “Sold A Story,” continued media and community reaction, and a candid view into how to make the science of reading “stick” after decades of research and data.

Episode Breakdown

(0:44) — The why behind the Emily Hanford podcast “Sold a Story”

(8:19) — The national educator response to “Sold a Story”

(12:38) — How kids are held back when schools teach habits of struggling readers

(16:15) — Teacher preparation program shortcomings and what needs to change

(20:37) — The real components of language comprehension

(32:21) — Grade 4-12 teachers response to the literacy conversation

(36:52) — The breakdown between data and research and the classroom

(44:37) — The next steps to making the science of reading “stick”

About Emily Hanford 

Journalist Emily Hanford brought the literacy conversations into American homes with the serial podcasts, “Hard Words: Why Aren’t Our Kids Being Taught to Read?” and “Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong.” 

Hanford is a senior correspondent and producer for APM Reports, the documentary and investigative journalism group at American Public Media, and her work on education has appeared on National Public Radio and in The New York Times, Washington Monthly, Los Angeles Times, PBS NewsHour, and other publications.

Episode Resources

The Hechinger Report — “OPINION: A call for rejecting the newest reading wars”

Reading Rockets — “Teachers Won’t Embrace Research Until It Embraces Them” by Margaret Goldberg

APM Reports — “Hard Words: Why Aren’t Our Kids Being Taught to Read”

APM Reports — “Sold A Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong”

Emily Hanford, Twitter @ehanford

Tiffany Hogan, Twitter @TiffanyPHogan

Liz Brooke, Twitter @LizCBrooke

Curious about the whole season?

Our next episode features Kareem Weaver of FULCRUM-Oakland.

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