George Hruby and Leslie Burns in Critical Perspectives on Literacy Policy and Practice Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy Vol 3 No6 pp. 693-696
In this paper Hruby and Burns critique the use of the phrase ‘science of reading’. Their main concern is that the assumptions made by the proponents of this ‘science’ are made without direct evidence from the students of classrooms. Further, they are concerned that these assumptions will be transferred into adolescent literacy instruction where even less evidence can be found of deficient decoding skills as the most pressing issue. They particularly question the use of the term ‘science’ as being something that is fixed and never changing. Science, they argue is never ‘settled’ or fixed. It is an ongoing process of conjecture, testing and discovery. Moreover, they critiqued the term ‘adolescent’ as if it too is some fixed ‘time’ in one’s life. It is an interesting short paper that would be useful for discussion by teachers of older students who may be disengaged or struggling with reading.