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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Dear Hall of Fame colleagues,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">I thought many of you might be interested in the attached article entitled “Legislating Phonics: Settled Science or Political Polemics” that George Hruby, Vicki Risko and I recently published in Teachers College
Record.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Thanks to the generous support of the University of Kentucky, which paid SAGE’s fees, the article is open access. It may be freely accessed and disseminated, including at the following website:
<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/01614681231155688">https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/01614681231155688</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Here is the abstract:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">In this commentary, we identify a phonics-first ideology and its polemical distortions of research and science to promote legislation that constrains and diminishes the teaching of reading. We affirm our own,
and a majority of reading professionals’, commitment to teaching phonics. However, we argue that phonics instruction is more effective when embedded in a more comprehensive program of literacy instruction that accommodates students’ individual needs and multiple
approaches to teaching phonics—a view supported by substantial research. After summarizing the politicization of phonics in the United States, we critique a legislated training course for teachers in Tennessee as representative of how a phonics-first ideology
is expressed polemically for political purposes. We contrast it with a more collaboratively developed, balanced, nonlegislative approach in the previous governor’s administration. Specifically, the training course (a) makes an unfounded claim that there is
a national reading crisis that can be traced to insufficient or inappropriate phonics instruction; (b) distorts, misrepresents, or omits relevant research findings and recommendations, most prominently from the report of the National Reading Panel; (c) inaccurately
suggests that “balanced literacy instruction” is “whole language” instruction in disguise; and (d) wrongly claims that its views of phonics are based on a settled science of reading.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">David<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:black">David Reinking<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:black">Distinguished Professor of Education Emeritus<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:black">Clemson University, and<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:black">Adjunct Professor of Education<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:black">Dept. of Language and Literacy Education<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:black">Mary Frances Early College of Education<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:black">University of Georgia<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:black">David.Reinking @uga.edu<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com_-3Furl-3Dhttp-253A-252F-252Fwww.davidreinking.info-252F-26data-3D01-257C01-257Clg40-2540txstate.edu-257Cd43f2d8241584a0ca81608d50aa7b5c9-257Cb19c134a14c94d4caf65c420f94c8cbb-257C0-26sdata-3Dji-252FNnlYJBKtAbG0lEfttgJUZxsi6BinXvN1OaPMm5Uc-253D-26reserved-3D0&d=DwMFAg&c=Ngd-ta5yRYsqeUsEDgxhcqsYYY1Xs5ogLxWPA_2Wlc4&r=gUnMZ3Xw_juA4Q4q8MsCC_IKO_x_v_mImmv8TQcuKAs&m=UedHPeoTlZDAK_Y35nsdvaZ1tvfVsAXM3l43vQNlACI&s=5qWqgpYErOqlfng1rqjL41TgwAGTYZ6oMB15g45RwUc&e="><span style="font-size:11.0pt">http://www.davidreinking.info</span></a><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:black">/<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:black">orcid.org/0000-0001-8040-6673<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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