The Oakland example was one cited in Time magazine recently. One of the teachers who earlier advocated eliminating phonics was described as now "heading up a campaign to get his old school district to reinstate many of the methods that teachers resisted so strongly: specifically, systematic and consistent instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics."

The article includes quite a bit of history about reading instruction, insights from neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene [1], a reference to a 2000 report from the National Reading Panel [2], and reports by education reporter Emily Hanford on why the science of reading has not been rapidly adopted [3].

[0] https://time.com/6205084/phonics-science-of-reading-teachers... [1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/0670021105 [2] https://www.nichd.nih.gov/sites/default/files/publications/p... [3] https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2019/10/23/hanfordandread...

Needs a lot more replication before I'll believe it. See Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention

http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Brain-Science-Evolution-Invent...

for a good recent, research-based account of how reading works.

The failure begins in most cases with appallingly bad reading instruction in school. See

http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Brain-Science-Evolution-Invent...

and the earlier sources it cites for research on what to do about that.

2008. Great author mentioned in this article, author of a more recent book

http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Brain-Science-Evolution-Invent...

about reading.

Quoted author Maryanne Wolf seems to be saying something that is at least partly contrary to what is said in the new book Reading in the Brain

http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Brain-Science-Evolution-Invent...

by Stanislas Dehaene. He is very up to date on the best research on reading acquisition in children and adult reading performance in countries around the world with different writing systems, and he has some very interesting suggestions in his book about how an electronic device for screen reading could actually SPEED UP human reading with optimal, brain-research-informed design, by presenting the words of the text in rapid succession (up to the word size limit enforced by eye fixation and focusing ability).

Stanislas Dehaene has great comments in his book about the right way to teach reading to children and, as one reviewer notes, "Reading in the Brain isn't just about reading. It comes nearer than anything I have encountered to explaining how humans think, and does so with a simple elegance that can be grasped by scientists and nonscientists alike."