Emily Hanford on Reading Science & K-12 Literacy

Prof. Albert Cheng of the University of Arkansas and Alisha Searcy interview journalist Emily Hanford, host of the hit podcast Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong. Ms. Hanford discusses how she became interested in the science of reading, the growing consensus around phonics as the best way to teach children to read, the impact of the digital age on learning, and the importance of academic background knowledge for schoolchildren's learning. She offers her thoughts on how to reverse dramatic declines in NAEP reading test scores and the different kinds of reading that young people should be doing, including fables, poems, myths, fiction, history, and biography, that give them the wider vocabulary and knowledge to be good readers.