The Science of Reading and Teaching English Learners to Read Are Not Incompatible
Williams: Some advocates fear that the science of reading is a poor fit for English learners, but there are ways to make its practices work.
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For all the noise and attention and — laudable — political energy behind it, the science of reading is not a thing. Or, rather, it is not a thing that schools can implement. The science of reading is a series of facts that, in combination, form a field consensus about how children best learn to read in English and other languages with phonetic writing systems.
Schools can’t “implement” those facts any more than auto factories can “implement” climate science or the Detroit Tigers’s general manager can “implement” baseball analytics.
Put simpler: the science of reading represents what we know about how kids learn to read and what practices — like explicit vocabulary and phonics instruction — support that learning. But it is not, in and of itself, a model to simply apply to a classroom.
This hasn’t stopped some critics from worrying that this research consensus requires a narrow, inflexible teaching approach that is inappropriate for some kids. In particular, advocates for English learner students in have expressed concerns that the science of reading is not suited for these children. Some have worried that reforming literacy instruction in English could distract — or even discourage — schools from supporting English learners as they develop in their home languages as well.
Fortunately, from Joanna Yip, a policy lead at the Education Trust-New York, an education advocacy organization focused on civil rights in that state, outlines a constructive path forward to “center the needs of multilingual learners as part of a comprehensive approach to literacy instruction for all students.”
Yip’s report provides a series of recommendations for improving literacy for English learners in the state. For instance, it calls for state leaders to overhaul future literacy training with support from experts with knowledge of English learners’ linguistic development pathways. Teachers should leave those training sessions with strategies for advancing English learners’ oral language development, as well as a heightened awareness of the ways that these students’ emerging bilingual abilities can strengthen their literacy skills in both of their languages.
It also suggests they ensure that teachers can provide “evidence-based literacy support across P-12 for students who are new to the country and in the initial stages of literacy development in English.” that these students benefit when teachers help them “bridge” knowledge and skills from their first languages into English. A young student might, for instance, be a confident reader in Spanish or Arabic; effective literacy instruction will help her strengthen those skills and also use them to improve as a reader in English.
It also argues that this greater systemwide commitment to English learners’ literacy should include expanding access to programs that support their bilingualism and biliteracy. Programs that teach English learners in both languages are especially well positioned to help students grasp the core components of language from grammar to syntax and beyond. That is, when English learners are learning to read in multiple languages, they can compare and contrast them to deepen their understanding of each.
As my co-author and I wrote in an article : “Crucially, these (sorts of) activities extend the core research often cited as Science of Reading, but they do not replace them.” Teachers do not need to avoid, modify or deviate from the consensus on how best to teach English literacy when working with English learners. Just like English-dominant children, these students benefit from the science of reading’s core components, things like the explicit teaching of vocabulary and phonics, as well as instruction that helps children practice smooth, fluent decoding of text.
For English learners, quality literacy instruction in English means , like supporting their development in their first languages and helping them make connections with elements of the English language.
Yip’s report credits New York for its “strong history of supporting multilingual learners,” and notes that this “can serve as a foundation for future state policy development.” It is true that New York has been a gateway destination for linguistically and culturally diverse immigrants to the United States since the Colonial Era. As such, its K–12 schools have deep institutional experience providing multilingual children with opportunities to learn English, acclimate to English-dominant U.S. society and .
In recent years, the state has made considerable efforts to improve how public schools serve these children, most notably through its 2014 and 2025 . The toolkit offers ideas for how teachers can support English learners’ English literacy in multilingual settings. For instance, while English and Spanish do not share perfectly identical phonological structures, there are some points of overlap. Teachers can use these similarities and differences to help students’ literacy in both languages.
They can, , show students that the letter “f” makes the same sound in English as it does in Spanish, while also instructing students in the many other ways that English spelling can represent that sound (i.e. “ph” as in “phoneme” or “gh” as in “enough”).
However, the report charges that New York schools have not done enough to incorporate English learners in their recent literacy reforms, relying mostly on voluntary guidance and “uneven implementation” instead of systemic improvements. What’s more, it notes that literacy teaching and instructional materials that are not research- or evidence-based remain too common in New York public education — which harms English learners and English-dominant students alike.
For instance, in 2024, the state launched a major literacy reform that provided $10 million in funding to the New York State United Teachers, its main teachers union. The funding supported professional development for teachers around literacy instruction— that the resulting training did not align with the research behind the science of reading.
Yip’s recommendations are excellent and would bring New York more fully into alignment with the research on how English learners learn best. While these students’ linguistic development is unique, as they are simultaneously growing language proficiencies in more than one language, the early literacy research that we refer to when we talk about the science of reading is also useful guidance for teaching them to read in English.
In other words, they should not miss out on the phonics instruction, explicit teaching of vocabulary and other foundational elements of the science of reading that help all students learn to read. If New York is able to systemically advance these priorities in its literacy instruction without abandoning its long and deep commitment to students’ multilingualism and multiliteracy, that would be a model for other states — particularly those blessed with large numbers of English learners — to follow.
The views expressed here are Conor P. Williams’s alone, and do not reflect those of his employer or any other affiliated organizations.
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Conor P. Williams is a researcher based in Washington, D.C. He was previously a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, the founding director of New America's Dual Language Learners National Work Group and a first-grade public school teacher in Brooklyn. He holds a Ph.D. in government from Georgetown University, a master’s in science for teachers from Pace University and a B.A. in government and Spanish from Bowdoin College.
