Then there is whole language or the three cuing view of reading (Goodman, 1967), which says that reading in English is as natural a human process as learning to speak-a process that should emphasize making meaning and expressing meaning in reading and writing. There is the simple view of reading (Gough and Tunmer, 1986 Hoover and Gough, 1990), which says that reading comprehension is the result of decoding and linguistic comprehension, or D x C = R. While there are many different scientific models for how children learn to read, there are only two views that have claimed center stage in the debate. Let’s start with a quick version of what the reading wars, or the sciences of reading, are.

So, what has research revealed about the science of reading for dual language programs that’s been excluded from the reading wars? The Reading Wars Emergent bilinguals and dual language students learn how to read differently than monolingual, English-speaking students, and there’s decades of research to prove it.

More tangibly, the exclusion of key information in the science-of reading-narrative has condemned many dual language educators to an impossible ultimatum-either conform to this approach or be labeled as defiant to research-based practices. It is an omission that withholds undeniable science about how dual language students learn to read in two languages and how best to teach them. Leaving out the details of where this research world begins, and ends, is a matter of equity and access to accurate knowledge, resources, and educational approaches that have been confirmed in their truth around the world. and National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000). Yes, all children… But what the science of reading hasn’t revealed is that the studies only represented “typical classroom teachers” and “typical American or English-speaking students” (National Reading Panel U.S. This quote has continued to rewind and repeat in my mind as a more than 50-year research “war” re-emerges to declare to the educational world that science has definitely and universally revealed how all children learn to read. “Literacy has two beginnings: one, in the world, the other, in each person who learns to read and write.”-Margaret Meek

Formula three phonics program