Fifty years of reading instruction and special education

Literacy and disability policy have historically moved in sync, often compounding system failures. Looking at the history of reading instruction and special education helps illustrate the larger picture. 

The 1970s: The right to read era.

Our government funded the television show The Electric Company as an intervention to prevent the third grade reading cliff. They didn’t call it that then. In 1969 the U.S. Commissioner of Education declared the 1970s the “Right to Read” decade. The federal government recognized that students who failed to transition from “learning to read” to “reading to learn” faced diminished life outcomes. 

In 1975, the federal government passed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act. (Later renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Act or IDEA). This law legally guaranteed that students with disabilities had a right to free, appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment. 

Philosophical shift and academic kindergarten. 

The late 1970s and early 1980s were defined by severe economic challenges including high inflation and deep recessions. Reductions in social and education program budgets were presented as painful but necessary fiscal discipline to stabilize the economy. 

The Department of Education was created in 1979. Republicans at the time argued this represented bureaucratic overreach. The Reagan administration shifted funding away from directed programs like “Right to Read” and shifted towards block grants. This gave federal money directly to states and local school districts. 

Also, starting in the late 1970s, many schools gradually shifted away from phonics instruction toward a philosophy known as Whole Language. The new teachings emphasized that reading developed naturally though exposure to books. In many classrooms this meant students’ introduction to literacy skills as well as instruction, relied on pictures, context and memorization, rather than explicit instruction in decoding. 

In the 1980s, rather than funding specific interventions or targeted federal literacy initiatives, the political consensus moved toward stricter graduation requirements, standardized testing and corporate-style accountability. 

Kindergarten from about the 1950s into the 1980s was seen as a transitional time to work on developmental skills, to prepare children for academics. Starting in the 1990s, kindergarten was increasingly seen as a time for academic skills and changed to a full school day. Less instructional time was spent on developmental play, oral language and executive functioning. This change was also intended to better prepare students for the increased use of academic content standards and standardized testing.

The accountability trap: High stakes testing and NCLB. 

The accountability movement saw a bipartisan No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act passed in 2001. NCLB aimed to eliminate what President Bush called the “soft bigotry of low expectations” by mandating that 100% of students reach proficiency in reading and math by 2014. A 1997 reauthorization of IDEA had already mandated that special education students take these statewide standardized tests. 

This meant that if a school’s special education students failed to meet “Adequate Yearly Progress” (AYP) on state tests, the entire school could be labeled as failing, face budget cuts or be shut down. Educators’ evaluations and employment were often tied to student performance. If students couldn’t pass the tests, they were denied a diploma. 

The Balanced Literacy illusion. 

In the late 1990s many districts switched to a new philosophy, Balanced Literacy, that included some phonics. In practice most students were taught to guess words based on pictures, context clues or the first letter, rather than sound out the word. This “three cueing era” continued, and reached a peak in the 2010s. 

During this same time period, special education expanded significantly. Reading disabilities became one of the largest disability identification categories. Students often needed to demonstrate years of academic failure before receiving the appropriate evaluations and needed interventions. This practice became known as the “wait to fail” model. By the time specialized instruction began, many children had experienced repeated failure and a widening achievement gap.

Turning Point: Mississippi and the Science of Reading.

A growing body of cognitive science, neuroscience and educational research accumulated over decades. During the 2000s and 2010s, the evidence became known as the Science of Reading movement. In 2013 Mississippi passed the Literacy Based Promotion Act, that banned Balanced Literacy methods and required phonics based, Science of Reading instruction. 

By the late 2010s, more information was available about the science of reading. Emily Hanford’s work reached many who learned that the science showed students need to learn to map letters to sounds, decoding, to read successfully, and cueing strategies were failing many students. 

In 2019 Mississippi recorded significant gains in reading scores. MS went from 49^th to 21^st place among state scores. These successes were the results of work begun in 2013. Teachers were retrained in scientific methods, literacy coaches were placed at underperforming schools and through enforcement of early screenings for struggling students. In recent years, MS ranked 9^th place among fourth grade reading scores, with economically disadvantaged and minority students outperforming peers in nearly every other state. 

The evolving face of accountability.

Post Covid, over 40 states have passed legislation banning the use of Balanced Literacy. The Covid lockdowns brought an emphasis on tech based learning. Some assessments and some interventions are only delivered by a device. We are seeing tech ed backlash as a result. 

Some states have removed the standardized testing requirement for receiving a diploma. This means more students will graduate. Some students with IEPs will be prematurely exited without the transition training they should receive. Receiving a diploma removes a district’s legal obligation to provide transition services until a student turns 22. 

In many areas of the country, charter schools have given families choices beyond the public schools or a private pay school. This can leave the district student population with a greater ratio of high needs students than the actual geographical student population. 

Can we break the cycle of avoidable failure? 

Looking back, educational outcomes are shaped by more than curriculum. Economic conditions, federal policy, accountability systems, disability law, teacher preparation, scientific understanding and the opinions of the general public all interact. Schools are good at measuring success within the systems they create, but are slow to recognize and respond when the system itself is producing avoidable failure. For students with disabilities, like all students, those delays can have lifelong consequences.