[Reading-hall-of-fame] Response from Sarah Just

[David Reinking]

Here is Sara Just’s response.  Thoughts? Next steps?
David R

Dear Professor Reinking,

First, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to share your concerns about our recent story on dyslexia and reading instruction in Arkansas. While I’m sorry that you found issues with our work, I genuinely appreciate the thoughtfulness of your note.

With your concerns in mind, my team and I went back through the reporting we did and reviewed the piece we aired, which was produced with our partners at Education Week. It’s worth remembering that our goal for this piece was to show how a group of concerned parents had driven change in education policy at the state level, and in doing that we explored the aspect of reading instruction most relevant to the story.

In your letter, you raised two main points of concern.

The first, as I read your letter, was to challenge our reliance on the term dyslexia as an identifiable learning disability. I appreciate your point that diagnosing dyslexia is complex and perhaps unsettled. And while it’s true that the Diagnostic Statistical Manual moved to a single, broad category of disability, the term dyslexia is still used in states and districts per guidance from the U.S. Department of Education<https://www2.ed.gov/policy/speced/guid/idea/memosdcltrs/guidance-on-dyslexia-10-2015.pdf>. As such, dyslexia falls under the umbrella of a specific learning disability and is a condition that qualifies a student for help under federal education law.  Our reporting on this piece, and in others, has found that within the field of special education—including among many professional organizations, educators, advocacy groups, parents, and students themselves—the term dyslexia is both well-used and well-defined.

Your second concern was that we oversimplified reading instruction. It’s true that our segment focused on phonics, which we understand is just one piece of the reading puzzle. We recognize, as you might argue, that students also need phonemic awareness, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension, along with many other things such as exposure to good books.

Our report did not prescribe a particular phonics program or outline the amount of phonics – or other literacy instruction – recommended in a classroom. We sought to highlight that a strong grasp of sound-letter correspondences is key to effective reading, and we were motivated to that emphasis because the parents at the center of the policy change in Arkansas had found the absence of phonics had been an obstacle to their own children’s reading success.

Professor Reinking, we have great respect for your and your colleagues’ expertise on matters of reading instruction and we take seriously the concerns you and those who also signed the email have raised. We are committed to providing our audience with education coverage that is accurate and clear. We expect our coverage of these matters, including reading educational approaches, and students who struggle in reading, will continue to be subjects of our future coverage. As you suggested  in our email, we will certainly keep you and the others listed below in mind as we go forward in our coverage.

Sincerely,
Sara

Sara Just
Executive Producer
PBS NewsHour
Sjust at newshour.org<mailto:Sjust at newshour.org>
703-998-2496



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