Abstract
As more schools embrace the new “science of reading” and look to quickly regain what they consider “the losses caused” by the global pandemic in 2020 (Engzell, Frey, & Verhagen, 2021; Storie, Mazzye, & Guilds, 2023), there is a great need for literacy researchers to contextualize the current moment in nuanced ways, and not reify the polarizing reading wars of the past. In this critical moment, we need to avoid reductive approaches that reify deficit perspectives of historically non-dominant communities and their literacies (Turner, 2023). The choices are no longer between whole language versus phonics, criticality versus neutrality, quantitative versus qualitative, or experimental scientific versus phenomenological nonscientific approaches to literacy research. Collectively, the articles in this issue affirm a science of literacies that have foregrounded a wide range of definitions, and empirical approaches to literacy research. From the micro-phonological to the macro-ideological, the articles in this issue demonstrate how literacy research can and should respond to polarizing tendencies.
In “Lexical and Sublexical Skills in Children's Literacy,” Joana Acha, Gorka, Ibaibarriaga, Nuria Rodriguez, and Manuel Perea demonstrated how, for a sample of 117 Spanish-speaking children, ages 8 to 10, letter knowledge and word identification were key skills for reading and spelling. Their experimental design study particularly showed the importance of understanding how orthographic depth impacts reading. Because Spanish has a more transparent orthography than English, letter knowledge could be a more enduring predictor of literacy, especially for decoding at the sublexical level. The results suggested important insights into the literacy processes of children working with more transparent orthographies such as Spanish.
In “Refrains of Friendship in Young Children's Postdigital Play,” Kenneth Pettersen and Christian Ehret explored the relational function of literacy in postpandemic and postdigital conditions in a study of how the friendship of two boys emerged across events as they watched YouTube, played Minecraft, and played with construction playthings. Through the concept of refrains, the authors showed the inherent limitations of traditional sociocultural and socio-material approaches to literacy that are focused on singular literacy events. More specifically, the authors showed how relational consistencies emerged across events both temporally and spatially. This postdigital condition prompted further analyses of how young children's local encounters with digital media technologies unfold, and how their relationships with digital media technologies carry on after they leave their devices. This ethnographic study provides a novel framework for understanding the intersection of affect and the relational function of literacy across time and space.
In “The Voices of Transnational MotherScholars of Emergent Bilinguals,” Jungmin Kwon, Wenyang Sun, and Minhye Son conducted a collaborative self-study of transnational mothers and how they promoted the bilingualism and biliteracy of their children. Drawing on transnational feminist perspectives, multimodal data, and narratives shared in an online inquiry group, this study revealed the challenges of countering the hegemony of monolingual ideologies while raising, respectively, bilingual Korean American children and Chinese American children. More profoundly, this collaborative self-study showed how metalinguistic consciousness and solidarity are cultivated through their “MotherScholar” narratives.
In “Media, Legislation, and the Science of Reading,” Olivia Cox and Emily Johns-O’Leary examined the intersections of science of reading research, media coverage, and state literacy policy. In doing so, they applied Goffman's frame analysis to Colorado policy and media documents, which have defined reading achievement, and they also analyzed the values, assumptions, and agendas within these definitions. They found two kinds of frames: diagnostic frames that defined a state-level problem with reading education, and prognostic frames that proposed curriculum and teacher training mandates as solutions. Underlying these frames were assumptions of objectivity, agendas of top-down accountability, and binary separation between effective and ineffective methods for teaching reading. They made a case for the development of a critical pragmatism that allows researchers, teachers, school leaders, and other practitioners to collaborate in navigating shifts required by legislation while reflecting on the ways in which such shifts are situated in larger narratives. Furthermore, they contended that such analyses are essential for implementing reading reform in ways that are equitable and responsive to local contexts.
These articles collectively provide an alternative perspective to how the current science of reading conversations are framed, contested, and ultimately implemented. Given how the literacy researchers presented in this issue have contextualized the current moment, it is clear that our choices of theories and methods for conducting literacy research are not binary; rather, they are scientifically rigorous, phenomenologically nuanced, and methodologically eclectic.