Why Doesn’t the Science of Reading Impact the Teaching of Reading?

I’ve just read Mark Seidenberg’s Language at the Speed of Sight. He’s a co-leader of the Language & Cognitive Neuroscience Lab at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. The book is filled with details about the science of reading and the conclusions reached through several decades of research. There is still a major question: why doesn’t reading science impact the teaching of reading? In the first chapter, titled “The Problem and the Paradox,” Seidenberg explains that he has been studying reading since the disco era. I figure that must mean some time in the 1970s. I’ll do the math: that’s […]