The reading wars never ended—they just went quiet long enough for a generation of children to fall behind. After decades of debate, the science is clear: how we teach reading matters. The question is: why did it take so long to listen?

The battle between whole language and phonics instruction has once again landed on the side of explicitly teaching phonics to early childhood students learning to read. Unlike phonics instruction, whole language instruction teaches children to read by immersing them in text and prompting them to use context, picture clues, and whole word recognition.

Most school districts attribute recent literacy achievement gains to the systemic implementation of reading instruction and teaching aligned with The Science of Reading, a body of longitudinal research that investigates how the brain learns to read. This evidence suggests children achieve reading proficiency when they receive direct instruction in phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension.

Many urban school districts are demonstrating significant literacy gains by applying a small number of evidence-based practices exceptionally well and at scale. Explicit systemic phonics instruction, or structured literacy, is one of these core practices.

In these schools, teachers help students understand letter-sound relationships, model step-by-step decoding, and have students practice aloud. Moreover, students engage in repeated timed readings to develop fluency, and they learn new academic and specialized vocabulary by analyzing word structure. They are given multiple opportunities to use new vocabulary in talk and writing.

The evidence is consistent. Balanced Literacy is the key. It is not enough to “drill and kill” phonics and phonemic awareness. This practice places students at risk of being good at word calling, yet incapable of using strategies to make meaning of text. Reading is thinking. Reading is meaning- making. Word callers recognize words quickly and accurately, but struggle with summarizing, questioning, inferring, and monitoring their understanding of text.

The answer was never phonics or meaning—it was always both. Our students cannot afford for us to get this wrong again.