What Is Being Taught in a Balanced Literacy Classroom?

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Most schools teach what's broadly known as balanced literacy. Kids don't have to sound out the words, they don't need to rely on phonics skills. You can also teach kids to do things like look at the first letter and think of a word that makes sense. And you can sort of figure out what's going on in a book by looking at some of the letters.

For decades, American schools have taught reading with an approach that doesn’t work very well. Emily Hanford of the podcast “Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong” explains how things are starting to change.

This episode was produced by Miles Bryan, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard and Victoria Chamberlin, engineered by Michael Raphael, and hosted by Noel King.

We're taking Monday off for Juneteenth and will be back with a new episode on Tuesday, June 20.

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