LETTER: Don’t blame teachers for reading woes

In response to Robert H. Ferguson’s Sunday letter on teaching phonics, “Sleeping educators”:

According to Clark County School District regulations adopted in 1963 and revised in 2023, “The Curriculum and Instruction Division … is responsible for identifying and adopting core instructional materials and supplementary resources. This division ensures that teachers and students have access to resources that support the Nevada Academic Content Standards.”

Educators are not “in denial” about the fact that students were doing poorly in reading. Up until about two years ago, however, the district — along with other districts in the nation — was duped into adopting the latest idea in education: sight reading. To support this new method of teaching reading, districts bought new texts and created and held mandatory workshops for teachers to learn to implement this method. Nationally, reading scores dropped.

About two years ago, Clark County and many districts “woke up” because they realized phonics instruction was a primary tool for successful readers. Now, again, teachers can ask students to “sound out” a new word and not be met with blank stares. Happily, the new methodology for teaching reading is phonics-based.

Local teachers do not have dominion over their lessons because they do not have control over what is taught and how it’s taught. Adopting a new curriculum or methodology goes through many steps. Teachers are the end of the process.