The Science of Brain Organization Can End The Reading Wars

The fields of education, educational psychology, and educational policy, have been arguing for years about balanced literacy instruction– how to teach all children to read in a way that honors the need for the sound-symbol correspondences of the alphabetic principle, and rich, oral language-based literature and comprehension strategies. The so-called “reading wars” developed because some people felt phonics was the solution, and others felt it was Whole Language. The reason this dichotomy developed and the solution to end the reading wars once and for all, lies in a little known concept in education that I’ve been using in my office for years to “balance” literacy instruction: the architecture of brain organization- hemisphere dominance and hemisphere lateralization. What I call Bright Brain Thinking® .

We are at a critical moment for Bright Brain Thinking® to take hold because districts across the country are rethinking their literacy curricula in the wake of Lucy Calkins and the Units of study curriculum being discredited. Her curriculum, taught and promoted at Teachers College Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University, was adopted by countless school districts across the country, including 80% of those in Colorado, according to this article by Colorado Politics. The New Yorker and the New York Times have each published articles in the last few months about the once widely accepted reading approach. In what appears to me to be opportunistic and unfair, Ms. Calkins was roundly blamed for “the harm done to generations of students” in the New York Times article and derided for promoting a “vibes-based” literacy curriculum in the New Yorker. While critics are quick to cast blame, none has acknowledged that research supporting both structured, explicit, skills instruction (phonics) and rich, authentic literature experiences (whole language) has been out there for years. So, we are at risk for the “wars” to continue until the decision-makers in education begin to understand why the human brain needs both phonics-based instruction and rich language-based literature for all individuals to become great readers.

Bright Brain Thinking® explains why. Bright Brain Thinking®  uses the as-yet-unrecognized science of brain organization, to explain that because the human brain is organized into two distinct hemispheres, each with its own set of specialized skills, and because human beings have a dominant side that takes the lead in our thinking and processing, moment to moment, we need the skills of both hemispheres to read effectively. And because of individual-level dominance, those who are left brained have likely seen phonics as the solution to reading, and those who are more balanced or right brained, have likely recognized Whole Language as the solution.

But the correct view is neither one, nor the other, it is BOTH– we have a whole brain, after all, not just one hemisphere. We cannot think with only one side, let alone read or perform any skill with only one side. 

By teaching teachers, who then teach their students about the skills that are specialized to the left and right hemispheres, we can then identify our personal dominance, our stronger side. And by knowing this, we also know the weaker-by-comparison side that needs developing. So for students who are great at sounding out words, make sure there are no gaps at the sound-symbol level of vowels and consonants, or phonics concepts, then teach them how to see the big picture/main idea and not get stuck in the details. They will need instruction in visualizing/making mental pictures and may struggle with social skills and connecting emotionally to characters and people in their real lives. These students will need instruction in comprehension strategies, nonverbal processing, pattern recognition, social thinking. By contrast, students who seem to understand what they read even when they have trouble sounding out words and recalling the rules of phonics, will need explicit instruction at the sound/symbol level– teaching through explicit, structured “science of reading” approaches what the vowel sounds are, phonics rules and advanced reading concepts of multi-syllable words, and continued encouragement to use their natural visualizing ability and strengths in seeing the main idea, making inferences and empathizing with characters.

I feel like we can put an end to all the debate about whether it’s phonics-best or literature-rich language-best. The architecture of the human brain dictates that it’s both and it always has been. So programs like LETRs with its word study (LH) and comprehension work (RH) are doing it right. So are Lindamood-bell’s programs when schools are using both the LiPS program and the Visualizing and Verbalizing program together because each addresses the other hemisphere. Using Bright Brain Thinking® allows educators to differentiate instruction in the classroom to teach children both the phonics that allows them to read the words, and the visualizing, inferential skills that allow them to comprehend. Bright Brain Thinking®  is the missing piece for education-not just childhood education but higher education, corporate learning, learning broadly.