The Supreme Court of Canada has recognized since 2012 that learning to read is a basic and essential human right. In 2022, the Ontario Human Rights Commission released their Right to Read report outlining the ways that whole language approaches fail students who have reading disabilities and others, “by not using evidence-based approaches to teach them to read”. Evidence-based approaches are built from the body of scientific knowledge commonly refered to as the “science of reading”. The University of Saskatchewan College of Education is not equipping educators to meet this responsibility to teach students to read. Today we are asking you to lend your voice to urge the College of Education to provide instruction to teacher candidates grounded in the science of reading so that we as a society can provide this critical human right.
Insight from the OHCR Right to Read Executive Summary
Because of marginalization and structural inequality, Black and other racialized students, First Nations, Métis and Inuit students, multilingual students, or students from low-income backgrounds are also at increased risk for reading difficulties. Approaches to teaching early reading that build skills for decoding words and language comprehension have been proven to work best for all students, and are essential for many students.
Word-level reading difficulties are the most common challenge for students who struggle to learn to read well. Most students who have issues with reading comprehension have word-level reading difficulties.
This report uses terms like the “science of reading,” “reading science,” “research-based,” “evidence-based” and “science based” to refer to the vast body of scientific research that has studied how reading skills develop and how to ensure the highest degree of success in teaching all children to read. The science of reading includes results from thousands of peer reviewed studies and meta analysis that use rigorous scientific methods. The science of reading is based on expertise from many fields including education, special education, developmental psychology, educational psychology, cognitive science and more.
Early word-reading skills are critical, but they are not the only necessary components in reading outcomes. Robust evidence-based phonics programs should be one part of broader, evidence-based, rich classroom language arts instruction, including but not limited to story telling, book reading, drama, and text analysis. Evidence-based direct, explicit instruction for spelling and writing are also important to literacy. Many students, including students with reading disabilities, have difficulties with written expression. Explicit, evidence-based instruction in building background and vocabulary knowledge, and in reading comprehension strategies, are all parts of comprehensive literacy instruction. Although the inquiry focused on one most frequent obstacle to students developing a strong foundation in early reading skills, the report also acknowledges the other elements of a comprehensive approach to literacy. These elements must also be addressed when implementing report recommendations.
Balanced literacy or comprehensive balanced literacy approaches, cueing systems and other whole language beliefs and practices are not supported by the science of reading. They have been discredited in many studies, expert reviews and reports on teaching all students to read words. Cueing systems and balanced literacy approaches are ineffective for teaching a significant proportion of students to read words, and may be most detrimental for students who are at risk. Students most at risk for reading failure, including students with reading disabilities and many students from other Codeprotected groups, will not develop critical early reading skills when these approaches are used in schools.
Many teacher candidates at the University of Saskatchewan will complete their program without any exposure to, much less practical training in, evidence based instruction. While some professors/instructors are experts in evidence-based reading instruction, others have either never heard of the term "science of reading", or they openly disparage it. Consequently, teacher candidates are leaving the college inadequately prepared to teach reading. More than this, many teacher candidates are leaving the college with reading instruction philosophies that have been proven to be actively harmful to some students.
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