Teaching Kids to Read: How One School District Gets It Right

Summary

Reveal Podcast Summary

Episode: Teaching Kids to Read: How One School District Gets It Right

Original Air Date: February 28, 2026
Host: Al Letson
Reported by: Emily Hanford & Christopher Peek

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Episode Overview

This episode investigates how one high-poverty school district—Steubenville, Ohio—consistently succeeds in teaching nearly every child to become a strong reader. As national debate and legislation reshape reading instruction based on the “science of reading,” the story highlights Steubenville’s success, why it works, and the unexpected challenges it faced when state mandates threatened the district’s proven approach.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The National Reading Crisis and the Push for Reform

• Staggering Statistics: Nearly 70% of U.S. fourth graders are not proficient readers, sparking waves of policy changes (“Close to 70% of fourth graders in the US are not proficient readers.” [01:40])
• Policy Response: Over half the states, influenced by podcasts like "Sold a Story," have passed new reading laws, aiming to move away from outdated or disproven instructional methods.
• Podcast Influence: "Sold a Story" (Emily Hanford, APM Reports) played a central role in exposing ineffective reading philosophies and energizing legislative action ([02:05]–[03:04]).

Discovering Steubenville's Success

• Unlikely Outlier: Despite poverty and economic decline, Steubenville Elementary schools outperformed similar districts in national achievement data ([06:28]–[06:45]).
• Historical Context: Steubenville’s success story began in the early 2000s and has continued for over two decades ([05:17],[25:16]).
• Community Support: Staff respond proactively to students’ basic needs—fixing hair, providing clothes, and supporting children from unstable homes ([07:27]–[09:50]).

Foundations of Steubenville’s Approach

• Universal Preschool: Roughly 80% of local children attend preschool—far exceeding national averages ([11:28]); costs are kept low or free for low-income families.
• Emphasis on Language: Early grades prioritize oral language development, with constant nudges to use full sentences, building vocabulary and grammar essential for reading and writing ([09:50]–[11:14], [16:25]).
• Sounds-First Phonics: Letter sounds are taught before letter names—a practice based on cognitive science to prevent confusion and expedite decoding ([12:20]–[13:59]).
  • Quote: “To read the word, it’s more important for them to know the sound first.” – Amy Crow, Kindergarten Teacher ([14:04])
• Direct and Cooperative Instruction: Blend of traditional teacher-led lessons and “cooperative learning” where students work together, reinforcing skills ([18:39]–[19:27]).
  • Memorable Moment: Third grader encourages classmate to “reread the sentence because you’re just kind of reading like a robot and we want to have perfect fluency.” ([18:13])

Structural Innovations

• Every Teacher Teaches Reading: All staff (including gym and music teachers) run small reading groups during a designated morning block, ensuring individualized attention ([21:00]–[21:40]).
• Flexible Skill-Based Grouping: Students attend reading classes suited to their skill level rather than strictly by age/grade, a controversial but effective move bolstered by granular data tracking ([21:42]–[24:16]).
  • Quote: “If you have a lot of teachers to teach reading, the reading classes can be really small.” ([21:14])
• Relentless Tutoring: Students below grade level receive daily, even twice-daily, tutoring administered by staff, college students, and high school volunteers ([24:16]–[25:13]).

Cultural and Operational Details

• Laser Focus on Attendance: Administrators use daily calls, door-knocking, and student contests to drive attendance, as missing instruction is seen as a critical barrier ([25:44]–[27:50]).
  • Quote: “I have attendance contests. It’s called ‘stay in the game.’” – Dr. Allen, Dean of Students ([26:38])

Steubenville Faces Unintended Consequences

• State Mandates Threaten Success: After Ohio’s adoption of a new “science of reading” law, approved program lists omitted Steubenville’s core curriculum—Success for All—because it hadn’t been reviewed by the influential nonprofit EdReports ([29:42]–[34:09]).
• The EdReports Influence: EdReports, initially designed for reviewing Common Core alignment, becomes a de facto curriculum gatekeeper, though not focused on scientific research or outcomes ([37:03]–[38:47]).
  • Quote: “Ed Reports is a place to start.” – Eric Hirsch, CEO of Ed Reports ([47:02])
• Research-Based Effectiveness Overlooked: Success for All, backed by decades of strong evidence, was temporarily sidelined because it did not fit new procedural criteria—not because of ineffectiveness ([33:04]–[34:09], [41:47]–[42:55]).

Resolution and Lessons Learned

• Victory for Evidence: After considerable advocacy and procedural review, Success for All was reinstated to Ohio’s approved list ([45:18]–[45:37]).
• Missed Opportunity: Despite its reinstatement, other districts did not request information about adopting Success for All, due to the prevailing influence of EdReports’ initial list and significant funding tied to those first-approved curricula ([46:01]–[46:25]).
• Need for Better Review Systems: The episode highlights the importance of reviewing not just alignment with standards, but actual outcomes and evidence of effectiveness ([49:03]).
  • Quote: “We need to judge what’s the outcome. We need to look at what is the evidence of effectiveness.” – Nancy Madden, Success for All co-creator ([49:03])
• Sustaining High Expectations: The episode closes with an appeal to maintain belief in every child’s capacity to read and to scrutinize reforms based on data, not just trends or procedural shortcuts ([49:30]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Students’ Social Support:
  “She doesn’t get it done at home…So we make time.” – Nancy Beatty, teacher ([08:06])
• On Universal Teacher Participation:
  “Get out your collection of readings…in the mornings, he’s not in the gym. He’s teaching a second grade reading class.” ([21:00])
• On Skill Grouping:
  “Having all the kids in a school in reading instruction at the same time means students can be assigned to a reading class based on their skill level, regardless of what grade they’re in.” ([21:46])
• On Testing and Results:
  “This is the lowest level English class at the middle school, and they’re all reading on grade level. There are no kids here who are behind.” ([28:27])
• On the Dangers of Narrow Metrics:
  “Success [in EdReports] is dependent upon how we align with standards as opposed to how we align with the science of reading.” – David Lieben ([41:47])
• On Pressure for Change:
  “A lesson here seems to be that our reporting has been put pressure on the system to try to do better, to do more, to make sure that reading instruction lines up with research.” ([48:33])
• On High Expectations:
  “We have to maintain the expectation that kids really can succeed. We have to remember that kids can learn. We can do better. There’s a way to do it. You could be Steubenville.” – Nancy Madden ([49:30])

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Important Timestamps

• 01:40: National reading proficiency statistics and legislative response
• 05:00–06:45: Introduction to Steubenville’s outlier status and unique success
• 11:14–12:04: Role and scale of preschool in Steubenville; affordability
• 13:59–15:12: “Sounds first” phonics approach and cognitive research background
• 19:27–20:04: Cooperative learning and why it matters for reading fluency
• 21:00–21:46: All teachers (including gym/music) teach reading in small groups
• 22:47–24:16: Data-driven skill grouping and intensive in-school tutoring model
• 25:44–27:50: Intensive attendance initiatives and their necessity
• 28:18–28:55: Middle school reading proficiency and absence of “strugglers”
• 33:04–34:09: Success for All program—a whole school reform and its research backing
• 37:03–39:00: EdReports’ role and conflict between standards alignment vs. research evidence
• 45:18–45:37: Success for All reinstated in Ohio due to direct review

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Conclusion

Steubenville’s story demonstrates that with community support, consistent philosophy, data-driven instruction, and a willingness to focus on how children learn, even high-poverty districts can achieve universal reading proficiency. However, effective programs risk being sidelined under well-meaning reforms if policymakers substitute procedural checklists and gatekeeping organizations for evidence of real outcomes. The imperative: judge programs by their results, not just their alignment with shifting trends, and never lose sight of the belief that all children can learn to read.

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Recommended Further Listening:
For more detail on the national reading debate and its impact, listen to Emily Hanford’s "Sold a Story" podcast ([49:48]).

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Transcript

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From the center for Investigative reporting and PRX, this is Reveal. I'm Al Letson. Close to 70% of fourth graders in the US are not proficient readers.

[A]

Senator Freeman, the floor is yours, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

[C]

And from state capitals, my bill requires

[D]

the science of reading.

[B]

We need to improve reading in Wisconsin to school districts.

[A]

We have gotten this wrong in New York and all across the nation.

[C]

There's been a big push over the last few years to rethink the way schools teach kids to read. More than half the states have passed new laws. One of the reasons is a podcast.

[A]

Emily Hanford had a podcast that dropped last week.

[B]

Emily Hanford's recent podcast that has taken the nation by storm.

[C]

There's a podcast out there I'd recommend people potentially listen to called Sold a Story.

[A]

The Sold a Story.

[C]

It's called Sold a story in 2023. We partnered with sold a Story and Education reporter Emily Hanford to bring you an episode investigating how reading is taught in American schools. It didn't seem like they were really teaching them to read.

[A]

It seemed like they were teaching them

[C]

to sound like they could read.

[A]

And I said to my son's teacher, I was like, this isn't how we learned how to read. Like, meaning me and her. This isn't how we did it, right? Like, this can't be right. Right?

[B]

You know, there's kids sinking everywhere and they're looking for help, and it's on us.

[C]

Sold a story showed how educators had been sold an idea about how kids learned to read. And that idea was wrong. Now schools across the country are getting rid of materials and methods based on outdated ideas that the podcast exposed. And Emily and the team at APM Reports are still on the story. They've been putting out incredible episodes about where we go from here, because it's one thing to get rid of something that doesn't work, but it's a different challenge to come up with something that does. Last year, we teamed up with Emily to bring you a second episode, one we're revisiting today. It's about a rare school district in America. A school district where nearly every child is a good reader.

[B]

A few years before the Solda's Story podcast first came out, I met Karen Chenoweth at a conference.

[A]

You and I sat next to each other at lunch. We didn't know each other.

[B]

We hit it off immediately. We were both education reporters, and we were both kind of obsessed with reading

[A]

instruction, I think I asked you what you were working on, and you started telling me, and I was very excited.

[B]

I knew more about Karen than she knew about me. For years, she'd been writing books about schools. I'd been reading her books. And in one of those books, she told the story of a school she visited back in 2008. A school in a small city in eastern Ohio, a place called Steubenville.

[A]

I had never been there. I'd never heard of it.

[B]

When she got there, she could immediately see that it was a city in rough shape.

[A]

It was one of the saddest places I've ever been to.

[B]

Steubenville's an old steel town. The mills had shut down. Jobs had vanished.

[A]

There was a rusting hulk of a steel mill. There were abandoned buildings, a lot of rubbish. Very little business downtown. The stores were empty.

[B]

In the heart of the depressed downtown was the elementary school Karen was there to see. A school where the Majority of kids were from low income families.

[A]

It was astonishing to me how amazing that elementary school was.

[B]

All the third graders at this school were passing the state reading test. Every single one.

[A]

You would have been amazed, Emily. I mean, every kid knew how to read. They had a kid they were so proud of who had been measured with a very low iq and he was reading. I mean, like, this was an amazing school.

[B]

The sad fact is, schools with lots of low income students usually have low reading scores. But according to state test score data, this school was one of the best in Ohio. Karen often thought about that amazing little school, wondered how things were going in Steubenville. And then one day in 2016, Karen arrived at work and opened up the New York Times. And there was an article about a huge new data set from Stanford University that allowed you to compare academic achievement at schools across the country. This was new. Before you could only compare schools within a state. This new data allowed you to compare schools across state lines. The New York Times story included a graphic. The graphic had thousands of dots on it. Each dot was a school district.

[A]

My eye was immediately drawn to this little dot on the upper left corner.

[B]

The dots in the upper left were the poor school districts where the kids were doing well. And the dot Karen was looking at was out there all alone, doing far better than the others.

[A]

And that was Steubenville.

[B]

So I decided to go to Steubenville to find out how they did it.

[A]

Destination is on your right. East Garfield Elementary School.

[B]

I'm headed to East Garfield elementary, which most people just call East. It's the school here with the most students living in poverty arrived. The school is next to a public housing project. As I get out of my car, I see little kids with big backpacks emerging out of the morning fog from the projects. Kids who live in the neighborhood walk to school. Others take a bus or get dropped off.

[A]

Morning, girls. Have a good day.

[B]

When I arrive, teachers, staff and a couple of local police officers are greeting students at the door.

[A]

Are you the police officer? Of course I am, my friend.

[B]

Just inside the school entrance, there's a girl standing in the hallway looking unhappy. She's a little blonde girl with skinny legs, wearing a dirty tan skirt and sneakers. She's upset about her hair. It's tied up in a messy ponytail, uncombed hair kind of spilling out everywhere. Apparently, she's often upset about her hair when she arrives at the school. And what's the story? She just doesn't get it done at home the way she wants? Yes, at all.

[A]

She doesn't get it done at home.

[B]

She says she doesn't have.

[A]

Mom doesn't have time. So we make time.

[B]

This is Nancy Beatty, a teacher at the school. Ms. Beatty bought a brush and hair ties that she keeps at school just for this little girl. And she fixes the girl's hair when she needs it. Sometimes the girl needs socks too, or a sweatshirt. There's a clothes closet for that.

[A]

We also have like shoes, socks and stuff in here.

[B]

This is Jennifer Blackburn. She's an instructional coach at east and the keeper of the clothes closet. Oh, winter boots.

[A]

Yeah, winter boots.

[B]

Sneakers.

[A]

Sneakers. I just went and bought sneakers and socks. I stuck them in here.

[B]

How often do you have to give kids clothing?

[A]

Every day. Every day. We have one parent homes. No parent homes. Kids that are coming from the homeless shelters.

[B]

The staff and teachers at this school know that they have to meet kids basic needs first, that children need to be fed and clothed and cared for in order to learn. And the staff and teachers here clearly care deeply about their students and take the time to do the little things that matter, like fixing a girl's hair or giving her socks. This is true in many high poverty schools I visit. The kids have a lot of basic needs and the staff does a lot to try to meet those needs. But in a lot of those schools, a lot of the kids aren't learning how to read very well in steubenville, they are ready. My tour guide is Jen Blackburn, the instructional coach and keeper of the clothes closet. She takes me first to preschool.

[A]

Let me make sure my friends are sitting nice. Crisscross applesauce, hands in their lap.

[B]

The preschoolers are on the rug, looking up at their teacher eagerly. She's assigning jobs for the day.

[A]

I pulled dier. So dier, you're my cool kid today.

[B]

Dier is beaming.

[A]

Our cool today?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You're gonna be my cool kid today. So what does my cool kid do, friends? I be the line leader. You're gonna be the line leader. You're right. All right, let me.

[B]

Line leader is clearly the best job, but there are other jobs.

[A]

Ryan, do you want to be the door holder, the electrician, teacher's assistant, or caboose the teacher? Oh, remember, put it in a sentence. I thank you. Very nice sentence.

[B]

These preschoolers are constantly being reminded to speak in full sentences.

[A]

Oh, put it in a sentence. Thank you. She said, I would like to be the door holder in preschool.

[B]

You want to get kids really good at talking because that's going to be a huge help when they start learning. How to read, knowing lots of words, how to pronounce them, what they mean is essential. And teaching kids to speak in full sentences helps them learn grammar and syntax, how words and phrases are arranged in the English language. This also helps with reading and with writing too.

[A]

The early childhood program is really the foundation for successful readers.

[B]

This is Lynette Gorman. She's the principal of west elementary in Steubenville.

[A]

A lot of oral language in those early preschool years.

[B]

There's a preschool program at all of Steubenville's elementary schools. That's not unusual to find a preschool inside an elementary school. What's unusual is how many kids here go to preschool. Across the country, fewer than half of children attend a preschool program. In Steubenville, it's nearly 80%. Children can start when they're 3 years old, and it's free for the poorest families. Everyone else pays $100 a month. You heard that right. Just $100 a month for all day preschool. Okay, so where are we going now?

[A]

Ramsey Kindergarten.

[B]

I'm back with Jen Blackburn on our tour of reading instruction in Steubenville. Kindergarten is where formal reading instruction begins. And there's something kind of unusual going on here too, with how kids are taught the letters of the Alphabet.

[A]

Alright, let's make the sounds that they make.

[B]

The teacher is holding up cards with letters on them and the kids are saying the sounds of the letters, but they're not saying the names of the letters. This is a particular way of teaching letters. It's sometimes referred to as the sounds first approach. And it's not the way letters are typically taught in American schools. Typically, kids are taught the names of letters first. The Alphabet song.

[C]

A, B, C, D, E, F, G.

[B]

I remember learning the Alphabet song. I still sing it in my head when I need to remember the order of letters, like when I'm alphabetizing books. You need to know the names of letters and the order of the Alphabet to be a literate person. But what do you need to know to learn how to read? To learn how to read, you don't need to know the names of the letters. In fact, the letter names can be confusing. For example, the most common sound of the letter E in English is not E, it's eh, as in bed and fed. And the most common sound of the letter I is not I, it's ih as in sit and pin. The idea in a sounds first approach is to focus children's attention on the sounds of letters. So when they're trying to read a word, the Sounds are what immediately come to mind. There's no interference, no confusion with the names of the letters. Like I said, it's unusual.

[A]

I even had my parents kind of question it.

[B]

Amy Crow teaches kindergarten in Steubenville.

[A]

They were like, why are you teaching them? Don't they have to know what the letter's called?

[B]

And I said, actually, to read the

[A]

word, it's more important for them to know the sound first. So my son was 20 months old and he was naming letters like ah, B. And my dad was frustrated by it. He was like, no, it's not. It's called A. And I'm like, no, Dad, I did

[B]

this for a reason. And.

[A]

And this is what I do in my school, and this is what works.

[B]

There's actually some disagreement among cognitive scientists about whether it's better to start with the letter names or the letter sounds. The bottom line is that kids need to learn both. And it's not that kids in Steubenville aren't taught the names of letters. They are. It's just that there's an emphasis on letter sounds to try to reduce clutter, to minimize the chances that a child will be confused. In other words, there's an emphasis on how children learn and what might be difficult for a beginner. This is one of the things that stood out to me in Steubenville. There's a focus here not just on what kids learn, but on how they learn.

[C]

It's one thing to agree that reading instruction has to include sounding out letters, also called physical phonics. It's another to ask, how are you teaching phonics? Emily says Steubenville stands out because they are paying attention to how kids learn. And the Alphabet is just the beginning.

[D]

When I tell some of my other

[C]

colleagues that may be at other schools

[B]

that this is what I do, they would say, you kidding me?

[C]

That's next on Reveal. From the center for Investigative reporting and PRX, this is Reveal. I'm Al Letson. 40% of fourth graders in the United States can't read, even on a basic level. But in Steubenville, Ohio, virtually all the kids are learning to read well. Reporter Emily Hanford and her colleagues from the APM Reports podcast sold a story, took a close look at Steubenville to see what they're doing right.

[A]

Think about what happened on page two, and I want you two to come up with a nice retell.

[C]

Here's Emily.

[B]

We're back at East Garfield elementary in a first grade classroom.

[A]

What happened on page two? On page two, the mom and the dad were driving to work.

[B]

Notice how the kids are speaking in full sentences on page two.

[A]

Eric Jordy's house.

[B]

They haven't mastered perfect grammar yet.

[A]

He draws his car.

[B]

And they still need reminders about what to do when they come to a word they don't know. But by first grade, these kids are putting it all together. They're reading and writing. I saw a lot of writing built into the reading instruction in Steubenville. What does your sentence say? Can you read it?

[A]

Sipping did not help Scott.

[B]

The students just read a story about a boy who's trying to get rid of his hiccups. Now they're writing about it. Each student has a partner whose job is to provide feedback on their sentences. And what are you pointing at? Araya. Araya thinks her partner's sentence should include what Scott was sipping. Scott was sipping water. Do you see what she's telling you about what is missing?

[A]

You're missing water, so you waste.

[B]

The boy, erases his sentence and writes, sipping water did not help Scott. Araya gives him a high five. There's a lot of this in Steubenville. Kids working together in pairs and small groups, actually teaching each other. One moment that stood out to me was in a third grade class. The kids were taking turns reading a book about rainforests.

[A]

Orangutans spend most of their lives in the treetops, swinging from branch to branch.

[B]

I was walking around the classroom, and as I approached one group, a girl was giving her classmate some instructions.

[A]

So what I want you to do is we're going to reread the sentence because you're just kind of reading like a robot and we want to have perfect fluency.

[B]

It's kind of a blunt critique, but the boy seems unfazed. Gives it another shot. All right.

[A]

Bats are common in the rainforest. They are not birds, but the world's only flying mammals.

[B]

Many bats hunt inside this teamwork thing. Kids working together and actually teaching each other. It's a central component of how Steubenville teaches reading. They call it cooperative learning. And I was kind of skeptical at first. When you look at the research on effective reading instruction, what you see over and over are references to the importance of direct instruction. That's when a teacher explicitly teaches students how to do something, like how to sound out a word. Putting kids together in small groups and having them teach each other is kind of the opposite of that. But in my tour through Steubenville schools, I did see teachers provide direct instruction, quite a bit of it, even in preschool. But there's always this cooperative learning time built in, too.

[A]

My turn. What can we learn?

[B]

What I realized is that cooperative learning provides something really important, something kids need to become good readers. It provides a lot of time for practice.

[A]

Relatives. Relatives.

[D]

This is.

[B]

This is because one of the concerns I hear about schools trying to do the science of reading is that sometimes there's not enough time for practice. That schools may now be providing too much instruction and not giving kids enough time to actually read.

[A]

What local zoo?

[B]

So here are my observations so far on reading instruction in Steubenville. The district has preschool, and most children go. There's a big focus on spoken language skills. There's phonics instruction. There's a lot of writing, not just reading. And there's direct instruction, but there's also cooperative learning, and that provides a lot of time for practice. And perhaps one of the most unusual things about how Steubenville approaches reading instruction is that every teacher teaches reading. Okay, like even this guy. Get out your collection of readings. This is Josh Meyer. He's wearing shorts and a hoodie with the sleeves cut off. He looks like a football coach. And he is. He's also the gym teacher at one of the elementary schools, but in the mornings, he's not in the gym. He's teaching a second grade reading class.

[A]

All right, here we go. Follow along as Mr. Maya Reeves. Biggest Apes.

[B]

Gorillas are the biggest.

[D]

When I tell some of my other

[A]

colleagues that may be at other schools that this is what I do, you

[C]

know, in the morning, they would say, you kidding me?

[B]

But it's part of the deal. When you teach in a Steubenville elementary school, gym teachers, music teachers, science teachers, they all teach a reading class. And here's why. If you have a lot of teachers to teach reading, the reading classes can be really small. I was in one that had only six kids.

[A]

We turn closets into classrooms so that we can teach anywhere. We can teach in this building.

[B]

This is Jen Blackburn again, my tour guide.

[A]

At one time, this was my office. We changed it into a classroom.

[B]

And it's not just that every teacher teaches reading. It's that every student in the school has reading class at the same time every morning from 9 to 10:30. That's the reading block. Having all the kids in a school in reading instruction at the same time means students can be assigned to a reading class based on their skill level, regardless of what grade they're in. So if a second grader is still reading on a first grade level, she goes to a first grade class during the reading block. And if a first grader is reading on a second grade level, she goes to a second grade class. This way of grouping kids is rare in American schools. In fact, it's controversial. Standard practice is for all kids to get instruction at their grade level. The idea is to prevent kids from getting stuck behind. But Steubenville has a system to make sure that doesn't happen.

[A]

I'm just going to show you around the data tool that our teachers use.

[B]

Jen Blackburn pulls up a window on a computer screen.

[A]

You can click on an individual student. These are first graders.

[B]

It shows every child at her school and where they are in reading and not just what grade level they're on, but more detailed information about the specific skills they've mastered and what they still need to learn.

[A]

So I can look at this student right here.

[B]

She clicks on a first grader who's behind. It's about two months into the school year and he's still working on reading skills from the end of kindergarten. So during the school's reading block, he goes to a class with other kids who are still working on the end of year kindergarten skills. The underlying philosophy here is moving a child ahead before he's mastered the basics is like trying to build a house without finishing the foundation. And so what are you going to do? So this kid is currently behind, not way behind, but a little behind?

[A]

Yeah, he's pretty behind in comparison to his peers. So he is placed in a.

[B]

There's a plan to get this child reading on grade level. He's in a small reading class so he can get plenty of attention from a teacher, and he gets tutoring during the school day. In fact, every first grader at this school gets a reading tutor until they've mastered all the first grade material. And as kids reach mastery and their tutors are freed up, the first graders who are still behind get even more tutoring. I asked Jen Blackburn how much tutoring the boy we've been talking about could end up getting.

[A]

Probably 25, sometimes 40 minutes, sometimes twice a day, four days a week.

[B]

That's a lot of tutoring, but that's what it could take to get this kid up to grade level. Where does Steubenville find all these tutors? Some are paid staff, others are community volunteers, and a lot of them are students. College students from a local university and students from Steubenville High School. Can I listen in for a couple minutes?

[A]

You want to read this page for her?

[B]

A high school student is tutoring a first grader at a Small table tucked into the corner of a hallway.

[A]

All the men have who am to help

[B]

all the tutors get training so kids get consistent, consistent instruction. But this high school tutor was already familiar with how Steubenville teaches reading. It's the way she was taught when she was a little kid in Steubenville schools.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Seen books.

[B]

Steubenville has been teaching kids to read the same way for 25 years. I think consistency may be one of the secrets of their success. Something else that's critical for success. Attendance. Attendance is huge. A school can offer fantastic reading instruction, but kids aren't going to get that instruction if they're not in school. So Steubenville puts a lot of effort into making sure kids show up.

[A]

I am Dr. Allen.

[B]

Suzanne Allen is the dean of students at East. She's in charge of attendance. If a kid is absent, it's her job to find out why right away.

[A]

So when I receive the attendance cards from the teachers, if a parent hasn't called, I make sure that I give them a call. Hi, this is Dr. Allen.

[B]

The idea is rapid response.

[A]

I'm just calling to check on your son.

[B]

She's calling about a kindergartner. He wasn't feeling well on Monday, but now it's Friday. He's been absent four days. No word from his mom. Dr. Allen gets voicemail every time she calls. She's worried about this kid.

[A]

This is a homeless child.

[B]

If he doesn't show up on Monday, she says she'll drive to the homeless shelter and find out what's going on. She does this a lot. Knocks on doors, brings kids to school if she has to, she does other things to get them there, too.

[A]

I have attendance contests. It's called stay in the game.

[B]

Homerooms compete against each other for the best attendance.

[A]

Good morning, staff and students.

[B]

Every morning, Dr. Allen gets on the intercom to announce the homerooms that had perfect attendance the previous day.

[A]

We had kindergarten. Ms. Blackburn. We had second grade, Mrs. D'.

[B]

Angelo. The homerooms with the best attendants win prizes.

[A]

They can choose from a Frosty. They can choose from ice cream sandwich, extra recess, or just a little extra time on the computer.

[B]

My first reaction to the attendance contest was isn't getting little kids to school more of a parent thing? Like, don't you need to motivate the parents more than the students? Not necessarily.

[A]

A lot of our kids live right here.

[B]

They live in the housing projects next to the school. And this first grade teacher, Julie Battistel, says a lot of kids are responsible for getting themselves to school and their younger siblings, too.

[A]

They are getting themselves up and getting themselves dressed and getting themselves to school. So I think what we're doing here is making them want to come, pushing them to be responsible. Get out the door and get over here.

[B]

Absenteeism is a big problem in many American schools, especially since COVID In Ohio, more than a quarter of students were chronically absent last year. That means they missed close to a month of school, sometimes more. But Steubenville has one of the lowest absenteeism rates in in the state. They're getting kids to school and teaching them to read. Here's what it sounds like by the time students are in middle school.

[A]

After a while, he thought he could make out the shape of the mountains through the haze.

[B]

This is a fifth grade English class. Middle school starts in fifth grade.

[A]

Here he could see there was nothing ahead of him. Nothing but emptiness.

[B]

I told you that. Students in Steubenville are grouped for reading instruction based on their skill level. What you're hearing now is the lowest level English class at the middle school, and they're all reading on grade level. There are no kids here who are behind.

[A]

There wasn't any water. It was a mirage. What is that called? Mirage.

[B]

Steubenville is a place full of confident readers and confident teachers. I asked teachers here if they ever feel unequipped to teach a child how to read. They looked at me funny, like they didn't understand the question.

[A]

No.

[B]

You have not faced a kid where like, I don't know what to do?

[A]

No, I've never felt that way. I do feel very equipped, prepared, and felt that I could get that job done.

[C]

In Steubenville, they've been successfully teaching kids to read for more than two decades. With that kind of success, you'd think the state of Ohio would be trying to get other districts to be more like Steubenville. Instead, the state told Steubenville it was going to have to adopt a new approach.

[A]

Why get rid of something that is proven to work?

[C]

That's next on Reveal. From the center for Investigative reporting and PRX, this is Reveal. Hi, I'm Al Letson. In 1969, a young woman named Nancy Madden graduated from high school in Minnesota and went off to Portland, Oregon to attend Reed College.

[A]

Reed's a very odd place. I mean, it's where you go to be very intellectual and very disruptive.

[C]

She was a child of the 60s, protested the Vietnam War, marched for civil rights, and what Nancy was most interested in disrupting was education she wanted to figure out how to make schools better, especially for black children.

[A]

The disparities in opportunity for children were just so obvious at that time.

[C]

In college, Nancy met a guy, a fellow student, named Bob Slavin, and he was interested in the same thing.

[A]

Our first date was to go on a walk to sort of talk about how do we improve education? What can we do?

[C]

Nancy and Bob got married. After college, they moved to Baltimore. They got PhDs, and by the 1980s, they were working together at a research center at Johns Hopkins University, studying how to teach kids in the most effective way possible. And one day they were at Johns Hopkins eating lunch, and a former member of the Baltimore City School board joined them at their table. Nancy says they struck up a conversation.

[A]

And so we're talking about, how would you change the schools?

[C]

Things were not good in Baltimore schools at the time.

[A]

Baltimore city schools were failing half of their high school students. I mean, they were just dropping out. And he said, this is wrong. This is not good enough.

[C]

And the school board member issued a challenge.

[A]

Here you are, Johns Hopkins University. You know, you're so smart. Well, what would you do?

[C]

He wanted to know what Nancy and Bob would do if it was their job to fix a school system. That conversation inspired them to create a program called Success for All, One way

[D]

to understand how Success for All came about and what it's trying to achieve.

[C]

We weren't able to interview Bob. He died in April of 2021. But he talked about Success for All's approach in this 2009 video.

[D]

Consider an old story about a little

[C]

town that decided to build a gorgeous

[B]

playground on some land that it had.

[D]

The problem, however, was that this beautiful

[C]

land was at the edge of a cliff.

[D]

And it occurred to the town fathers

[C]

that there was a danger that children

[D]

might fall off the cliff. So the local playground board had huge debates. Should we build a fence? Should we build at the top of

[B]

the cliff, or should we put an

[D]

ambulance at the bottom? I think if you think about what

[C]

that story is telling you, you'll realize

[B]

that to put an ambulance at the

[D]

bottom of the cliff is the way

[C]

we do so much ordinarily in schools.

[D]

Part of the idea of Success for

[C]

All is to try to make sure

[D]

that children don't fall off the cliff

[B]

in the first place.

[C]

The Success for All program is more than just a reading curriculum. It's what's called a whole school reform model. And all the things we've heard about in this episode that are getting such impressive results. In Steubenville, Ohio, the focus on preschool and language development, the sounds first approach to teaching letters, the way they group kids, the gym teacher teaching reading, the direct instruction, the cooperative learning, the tutoring, the attendance. They're all a part of success for all. And there are lots of studies that show it's effective when it comes to getting kids to be good readers. So it was a shock to folks in Steubenville when in 2024, Ohio made a list of approved reading programs and the Success for All program wasn't on it. And ironically, the reason Ohio decided to make the list in the first place was Sold a story, the Podcast from APM Reports. Today we're revisiting a show we first brought you last year in partnership with that podcast. Its host, Emily Hanford, has the story of how that all happened.

[B]

I've gotten a lot of emails from listeners since Soulja Story first came out. I have a fat file folder full of actual letters, too, sent in the mail. One of these letters came from Matt Huffman. At the time he was president of the Ohio State Senate. The letter is three handwritten pages. Huffman said he was, quote, invigorated after listening to the podcast. He could see there was a problem with how reading was taught and he wanted to fix it. He wasn't the only one.

[D]

Ohio had a lot of people who listened to our podcast.

[B]

This is my co reporter, Christopher Peek.

[D]

I got a call just a couple months after Soldastory came out from one of the top education officials saying all the executives in the department were listening to Solda's story and they want to do something about it.

[B]

A few weeks after Chris got that call, the governor gave his State of the State address. I'm calling for a renewed focus on literacy.

[D]

He's saying a big proposal is coming. We're going to make changes to how reading is taught in Ohio.

[B]

Two weeks later, legislators introduced a bill

[D]

and this bill says the department has to come up with a list of programs that are aligned with the science of reading.

[B]

The bill passed in June. The governor signed it into law on the Fourth of July. Now it was up to the Ohio Department of Education to make a list of approved reading programs.

[A]

My name is Dr. Melissa Weber Mayer,

[B]

and it's this person's job to figure out how to do that.

[A]

I work for the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce.

[B]

She and her colleagues have to come up with this list quickly.

[A]

We had a very short window to get things in place.

[B]

The law said schools in Ohio must be using a program aligned with the science of reading. By the end of the following school year. But Melissa Weber Mayer and her team decided it wasn't feasible for them to do their own analysis of whether programs were grounded in research. We actually did not review efficacy studies.

[A]

We looked at what our other state

[B]

colleagues who already had similar laws, had done. They looked at other state lists. A program could make a case to get approved in Ohio if it had already been approved by another state. And there was another way to make it onto Ohio's list.

[A]

Have you been reviewed by E.D. reports?

[B]

E.D. reports Edwards it's an organization that Ohio and other states have been looking to for help when figuring out what programs count as the science of reading. My co reporter Christopher Peek has been digging into ED reports.

[D]

It's a nonprofit and it's only 10 years old, and it's already built up a lot of clout by billing itself as a kind of consumer reports for curriculum.

[B]

So what exactly does EdReports do?

[D]

They review curriculum. Teams of teachers actually do the reviews. They review not just reading curriculum, but math and science curriculum too. And they rate it. It's a red, yellow and green system. So if you're a publisher, you want an all green rating from EdReports. Nearly 2,000 school districts have used its reviews to make their purchasing decisions. And the organization says 40 publishers have actually adjusted their products in response to an Ed Reports review. This is bigger than just the new state list. EdReports was having a big influence on the publishing industry before sold a story and the current conversation about the science of reading.

[B]

And it turns out there's a bit of a disconnect here, right? Ed Reports wasn't set up with the science of reading in mind.

[D]

No, it was set up with something else in mind. Something called the Common core state standards.

[C]

48 states have now joined a nationwide partnership to develop a common set of rigorous career ready standards in reading and math.

[D]

Common Core was a thing during the Obama administration. It was an effort to raise education standards across the country. The goal was to make sure students in different states were learning the same core skills. There was a need for new curriculum, and publishers put out lots of stuff that they said was aligned with the Common Core standards.

[B]

But there was no one really policing that.

[D]

And that's why Ed Reports was established to review curriculum and say, yes, this curriculum really was designed with the Common Core standards in mind, or no, this curriculum wasn't. It's not aligned with the new standards.

[B]

So Ed Reports released its first reviews in 2015, and it becomes very, very influential very fast. But then along comes the science of reading and people are starting to ask a different question. Not is your curriculum aligned with the Common Core? But is your curriculum aligned with the science of reading?

[D]

Exactly. And what I found in my reporting is that EdReports has given high marks to some programs that include strategies for teaching reading that are antithetical to what the science tells us about how kids become good readers.

[B]

So say more about that. Do you have an example?

[D]

So I talked to Carrie Curto. She was a literacy specialist at the state Department of Education in Rhode island, which was one of the first states to really try to push for better reading curriculum. Rhode island had looked at reports to come up with a list of programs that districts should be using. And Carrie had been in the job for just a couple of weeks when she had a jaw dropping moment.

[A]

I was in my cube on the was it fourth floor of the Department of Ed and I began to go through the materials on the approved list. And some of them had some great evidence, aligned instruction and others. I started flipping through and said, oh,

[D]

she was seeing programs that taught kids to use pictures and context clues to read unfamiliar words instead of just sounding out the letters. These cueing strategies, as they're often called, are not just ineffective. Research by cognitive scientists shows they teach kids bad habits that can be hard to break. But the cueing strategies were in some of the curriculum materials on the state list.

[A]

They were on this list that said, go ahead and adopt these programs. This is what the Rhode Island Department of Education stands behind.

[B]

I think to understand how this happened, it helps to know a bit about what the Common Core standards are.

[A]

Yep.

[D]

The Common Core standards basically lay out what kids should know and be able to do at each grade level. I have a copy of the English Language Arts standards right here. It's 66 pages long. And here's an example of one of the standards for a first grade. It says that a first grader should be able to ask and answer questions about key details in a text. But the Common Core standards don't say anything about how to do that. They don't say anything about how to teach. They just say what to teach.

[B]

And you can see how this could be in conflict with the science of reading, because one of the big things the science of reading has revealed is that how you teach kids matters. But Ed Reports was basically agnostic on how things were taught. What ED Reports essentially wanted to see was that a curriculum was covering everything in that 66 page standards document you've got there.

[D]

Right. Even some of the people who were once supported, supporters of Ed Reports are recognizing this conflict now between the Science of Reading and the Common Core Standards. I talked to David Lieben. He's an educator with more than 50 years of experience.

[A]

I've been involved in education since shortly after the Civil War.

[D]

As you can tell, he likes to joke around a bit, too. David Liebman worked with ED Reports when it was first set up. He thought the organization was needed because of that problem we mentioned earlier. Publishers slapping Common Core stickers on their products and no one checking to see, is this program really living up to that label. But David Lieben now says Ed Report's methodology is flawed.

[A]

Success is dependent upon how we align with standards as opposed to how we align with science of Reading.

[D]

He says one of the biggest problems with ED Reports is that some programs that are backed by rigorous research are not getting those coveted all green ratings. They've got good studies that show they're effective. But EdReports doesn't factor studies into their ratings. That's not part of the review process.

[B]

So EdReports was designed to look at does your program cover all of the standards? Not does your program deliver on the science of reading?

[D]

Right. And I should note too, that David Lieben and Carrie Curto, the woman from Rhode island, they're both now associated with other organizations that do their own curriculum reviews.

[B]

I want to ask about Success for All. The program they use in Steubenville, Success for All has never been reviewed by ED Reports. Why not?

[D]

Well, Success for All is not just a reading curriculum. It's a whole school Reform program. And eDrivements doesn't review whole school reform programs. A spokesperson told me that reviewing just the reading curriculum wouldn't have provided a complete picture of Success for all. So EdReports didn't review it.

[B]

And without a review from EdReports, success for all wasn't getting on most state lists. When the superintendent in Steubenville first heard about Ohio's new science of reading law, she wasn't worried.

[A]

Oh, no big deal. SFA is the science of reading.

[B]

This is Melinda Young.

[A]

As naive as I guess I was, I really just never gave it a second thought.

[B]

When I first visited Steubenville, the news was still kind of sinking in. They were hopeful that Success for All might have been eventually make the list. State officials said a second review process would be coming, but they were already looking at new reading programs.

[A]

We are proactive here.

[B]

This is Tricia Sakotch, the principal of East Elementary.

[A]

We're not just sitting here waiting.

[B]

We're getting ready just to be Prepared. They were looking at the programs on the state's initial list, and there are

[A]

a lot of school districts who are using approved curriculum already.

[B]

That's Lynette Gorman, another principal in Steubenville. She and her colleagues were looking up test scores in the school districts that were using an approved program. Close to a third of districts in Ohio were already using something on the state's initial list. But only one of those districts was doing better in reading than Steubenville. It's a tiny district with a very low poverty rate. The teachers in Steubenville were having a hard time understanding why they might have to stop using Success for All.

[A]

I don't want a new program. Why get rid of something that is proven to work? I would be upset about it.

[B]

They were upset, but they weren't panicking. Either way, we'll be fine.

[A]

We're a strong district. We'll get through it if we have to.

[B]

And in the end, Steubenville didn't have to find a new program because the state of Ohio updated its list in January 2025, a year after the init list was published, the Ohio Department of Education added Success for All and some other programs, too. I emailed the education official you heard earlier to find out what happened. She said programs that failed in the first round were allowed to reapply. This time, the state didn't rely on ed Reports. They did their own review of Success for All and the program was approved.

[A]

As soon as I got the news, I sent it out to all of the principals.

[B]

This is Melinda Young, the Steubenville superintendent.

[A]

It was on a Friday evening, and it was crazy because they all responded back within, I would say, five minutes. It was like relief. Yes, relief.

[B]

Ohio's list was updated in time to save Success for All in Steubenville. But we know of at least two schools in Ohio that had already decided to drop Success for All before the state approved it. And as hundreds of school districts in the state were looking for new reading programs over the past year, not a single one reached out to the Success for All organization about adopting their program.

[D]

The decisions schools and districts are making now will affect how reading is taught for the next five, ten years, maybe more.

[B]

This is my co reporter, Christopher Peek

[D]

again, and a lot of money is being spent. Ohio gave out more than $50 million to help districts pay for new reading programs. And most of that money is going to programs that got good ratings from ed Reports. So can you just start off by introducing yourself?

[A]

Sure.

[B]

I'm Eric Hirsch. And I'm the chief executive officer of ED Reports.

[D]

Eric Hirsch started off our interview by talking about the history of the organization.

[A]

It'll be our decade anniversary in March and it's been fairly amazing.

[D]

But he hesitated a bit when I asked about the influence this organization is having right now. I've seen Ed Reports come up a lot in state regulations or state laws about, you know, you should be looking to Ed Reports to figure out is this a good program or not. And I was wondering what you make of that. Is that a good thing to have Ed Reports in state regulations? How do you feel about that?

[A]

Personally, we say Ed Reports is a place to start.

[D]

He repeated this several times in our interview.

[B]

Ed Reports is a place to start. Ed Reports is a place to start. I believe Curriculum is a place to start.

[A]

Right?

[B]

And eDReports is a place to start.

[D]

He told me Ed Reports shouldn't be the final say on what the best reading programs are.

[B]

EdReports provides information from the lens of our educator reviewers and we believe it's

[A]

helpful to districts and states in understanding what's in the materials.

[B]

Before Ed Reports, there was not a lot out there, not much to go on. But the thing is, a lot of states and school districts have been treating ED Reports as more than a starting point. They've been treating it as a gatekeeper, a place that can tell them which programs are compatible with the science of reading and which ones aren't.

[D]

And EdReports has been telling teachers its reviews were based on that science. I found a blog post they published in 2023. It said EdReports has always reviewed instructional materials for the science of reading.

[B]

But then critics started pointing to curriculum that was getting good reviews from Ed Reports but include the cueing strategies that conflict with the science of reading and curriculum that was not getting good reviews but have evidence that showed they're effective.

[D]

And eDReports has made some changes. They now include a Science of Reading summary with the reviews that highlights how well programs teach foundational skills. And they changed the review tool. Programs that teach the cueing strategies will now automatically fail.

[B]

So a lesson here seems to be that our reporting has been put pressure on the system to try to do better, to do more, to make sure that reading instruction lines up with research. And in the rush to do that, states are looking at an established organization for guidance. But that organization wasn't designed with the science of reading in mind. Nancy Madden, the co creator of Success for All, told me she doesn't want her program to be rated by Edward Reports.

[A]

I don't want to validate that approach to reviewing what instruction should be. It's the wrong approach. We need to judge what's the outcome. We need to look at what is the evidence of effectiveness.

[B]

And she's worried that all the talk these days about the science of reading won't result in better outcomes for kids. That we'll look back in a few years and say that didn't work.

[A]

We have to maintain the expectation that kids really can succeed. We have to remember that kids can learn. We can do better. There's a way to do it. You could be Steubenville.

[C]

If you haven't heard the Sold a Story podcast from the team at APM Reports, I can't recommend it enough. There are 14 episodes in season one, and Emily and her team are now working on a whole new season, which is scheduled to be released this fall. To find out more about their great podcast, or to get in touch with the reporters behind it, visit soldastory.org Emily Hanford reported today's episode along with Christopher Peake. Additional reporting by Olivia Chilcote, Kate Martin and Carmelo Walianone. Curtis Gilbert edited today's show. Sold a Story is supported by the Hollyhock foundation and the Oak foundation, with additional support from the IBIS Group, Esther A. And Joseph Klingenstein Fund and the Kenneth Raynan Foundation. Betsy Towner Levine Fact checked Today's show Legal review by Mark Anfinson reveals Production Manager Zulema the Great Cobb score and sound design by Chris Julen with additional mixing in score scoring by the dynamic duo Jay Breezy, Mr. Jim Briggs and Fernando My Man Yoaruda. Our deputy Executive producer is Taki Telenides. Our executive producer is Bret Myers. Our theme music is by Cameraado Lightning. Support for reveals provided by the Riva and David Logan foundation, the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur foundation, the Jonathan Logan Family foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson foundation, the park foundation, the Schmidt Family foundation and the Hellman Foundation. Support for Reveal is also provided by you our listeners. We are a co production of the center for Investigative Reporting in prx. I'm Al Letson and remember there is always more to the story.

[B]

From prx.