Sold a Story - Podcast Rankings and reviews

If you work in education or have children in school you need to listen to this podcast! Eye opening research that shined a light on so many of the issues I’ve experienced as a teacher working in elementary schools. The background and details blew my mind and have fired me up to help bring about change and focus on what the research says about how kids best learn to read!! Thank you Emily and the American Public Media team!

This podcast has changed how I think about my struggling reader at home and has shone a light on instruction. I’m now doing a deep dive into our school system, what methods they use and get in touch with my daughters reading teacher at school. It’s eye opening and I am both invigorated and terrified all at the same time about how to proceed to get my daughter reading well. Thank you!!!! This was the most valuable information I’ve received ever on this topic. My child will thrive because of this.

I had my six grade son listen to episodes 1-2. He doesn’t read, write, or spell well. He calls himself stupid and hates school. After listening, he said he feels so much better about himself-and more receptive to the phonics interpretation he is going to start. Thank you. He thought he was all alone. Thank you for helping him realize that we can get caught up and maybe even enjoy reading.

This is SUCH an important podcast. As an educator who started down my own rabbit hole of discovery when I realized my own child was dyslexic, and faced considerable shock and frustration with the lack of knowledge surrounding appropriate reading instruction, this fills in many, many gaps for me. Every educator, every school board member, every parent, every school administrator… needs to hear this information!

This episode exemplifies the problem of talking about something you know little about or haven’t experienced. Reading Recovery includes phonics in its daily thirty minutes lessons. I know, I was there doing it everyday for nine years. Each student makes an ABC book, matching a picture of their choice to each letter. Weeks are spent making that book and reading through it each day to learn letter names and sounds. A child would often tell me that he or she did not know a letter sound during reading until I prompted, “ yes you do, think of the picture in your ABC book that begins with that letter” and the child would smile and make the sound. Another daily component uses magnetic letters. The first few weeks are spent on sorting and identifying letters and then moves into “making and breaking” words: making a word, deconstructing it, putting it back together. Using Visual information is taught while reading. The prompt, which this podcaster seemed to dismiss, is used but often the reader has to be taught other visual strategies such as to sound out more of the word and also look at the parts of the word they know to help read the word. Another daily component is composing and writing a story with the child. The child is taught how to write the unknown words in their story by learning how to say the word slowly to identify the number of syllables and identify the sounds in the word by using “sound boxes”. The child writes the story ( one or two sentences) and is taught to check the words for accuracy. The teacher writes the story on a strip of paper and proceeds to cut it up for the child to reassemble it. All of the above happened everyday. Phonics is taught but the term is Visual information and learning how words work. It’s very unfortunate that this podcaster didn’t report thoroughly and didn’t observe an actual lesson.

If this investigator wanted to provide an accurate picture of the program referred to in this podcast, she would have spent time in classrooms where experienced and well-trained teachers implement this program as intended. The single strategy portrayed in this podcast is one of many, many strategies and activities used in classrooms to teach children HOW to read. This program is a comprehensive balanced literacy program, which when used by experienced and well-trained teachers grows successful readers and writers. To do this program justice, teachers need ongoing training, funding for materials (many of which are hands on), and the time to plan and prepare. Unfortunately, many districts do not provide teachers with the tools they need. It is our children who pay the price.

When listening or reading information, we need to do it critically. Is the investigator knowledgeable on the topic? Has she done a thorough job of investigating? Are her sources knowledgeable, educated and informed? Is she using false information to raise emotions in order to convince people to believe in untruths? Shame on her for this disgusting podcast.