Podcast Episodes

The Ideology of Reading

Season 24 Episode 8

Despite having the word “science” in their title, the proposals put forth by the SoR are not grounded in science at all, but in pseudo-science, I-think-isms, and anecdotal evidence. In fact, they ar…

Published on 4 months ago

Forward to the Past: Writer Over to People

Season 24 Episode 7

One of the reasons why the Science of Reading people have been so successful is that they’ve been writing to the people over there. They’ve used stories and radio documentaries that sound very much …

Published on 4 months, 3 weeks ago

Conversation with Daphne Russell

Season 24 Episode 6

This is a conversation with another master teacher, Daphne Russell

Published on 4 months, 3 weeks ago

Reading Wars and the Education Science Reform Act of 2002

Season 24 Episode 5

There never was a reading war. A war assumes there are two armies meeting on a field of battle. This didn’t happen. But there was a reading coup. There was a hostile takeover of the field of lite…

Published on 4 months, 4 weeks ago

Cognitive Science and Reading

Season 24 Episode 4

Neuroscience is a study of the nervous system including the brain, spinal cord, and neurons (NIH, 2025). The neuroscience of reading looks at how the brain functions during reading using imaging tec…

Published on 5 months ago

Orthographic Mapping: Weak or Robust Theory?

Season 24 Episode 3

In this podcast, I try to make sense of orthographic mapping, a term invented by Linnea Ehri and introduced in Chapter 15 (Ehri, 2014). We’ll start with her definition:

“Orthographic mapping occurs…

Published on 5 months ago

Everybody Uses Direct Instruction For Reading

Season 24 Episode 2

The term “direct and explicit instruction” is often used to sell products or to persuade state legislators to make bad decisions. But everybody already uses direct instruction in some form. It's…

Published on 5 months, 2 weeks ago

Research to Support the Three-Cueing Systems

Season 24 Episode 1

Our big human brains have evolved to become very efficient predicting machines (Hawkins, 2004). They are constantly accessing multiple data sources in order to give us a sense of what will happen ne…

Published on 5 months, 3 weeks ago

Orton-Gillingham: Behind the Pretty Words

Season 23 Episode 29

The problem with Orton-Gillingham and similar for-profit products (Lindamood, Wilson Language Training, Barton System, etc.) is that they try to reduce teaching to an algorithm. An algorithm is a fo…

Published on 6 months ago

Defining the Science of Reading

Season 23 Episode 28

When somebody askes you, “What’s the Science of Reading?” what do you say? Is it a process? Is it a set of strategies? An approach or method? A reading program? A group or organization? In this…

Published on 6 months, 1 week ago