Blog Posts

Erin’s Top 10 Literacy Pet Peeves

By Erin Bailey

My friend Tim Shanahan recently wrote a blog post about his top ten literacy pet peeves: Do You Have Any Pet Peeves About Reading? Here Are My Top Ten | Shanahan on Literacy  

I thought it would be fun to share mine.  

1.The saying, “learning to read vs. reading to learn.”  

 I hear this phrase often, “K-2 is learning to read and 3-5 is reading to learn.” The idea is that K-2 are foundational years for reading development, but I think the phrase undermines two important things. 

First, we are always reading to learn. Even a kindergarten student who is working through a highly decodable beginning reading book is reading to learn. The second, and probably most overlooked, is that children are always learning to read. 

Yes, most phonics instruction happens in grades K-2, but did you know there are phonics standards for grades 3-5? I’ve presented to groups of fifth grade teachers, and they did not know their grade had phonics standards! 

  My high school ELA teachers continued to teach morphology and etymology. At the end of my doctoral studies, my advisor asked me if I had become a better reader to which I answered an enthusiastic, “yes”! I’m grateful that my teachers believed that we never stop “learning to read,” and I hope that more teachers will adopt this mindset.   

2. Alphabet books and games that do not use the most common or useful letter-sound correspondence.  

I first noticed this when my daughter was a baby and I began looking for alphabet play mats and other learning products. Many used “Orange” for O or “Ice Cream” for I. 

The problem is not that these words fail to begin with those letters; it is that they do not represent the most common or earliest sounds children typically learn for those letters. For example, “octopus” would have been a better choice for the letter O because short /o/ sound is taught before the /or/ sound, such as in “orange" in most phonics progressions.   

That experience led me to work with the RIF team to create an alphabet sound chart, classroom rug, and coloring book. Sound Spelling Charts | RIF.org  

3. Adding a schwa sound when teaching letter sounds.   

Few things keep me up at night more than imagining teachers adding an “uh” sound when teaching young students letter sounds. I notice this most with “puh,” “tuh,” and “chuh.” The problem is that “uh” is a vowel sound, so adding it to /p/ while sounding out a word adds an extra syllable.  

For example, “pat” becomes “puh-ah-tuh,” which can make smooth blending more difficult for children. I recommend using continuous blending whenever possible.  

4. Flip the vowel sound strategy   

I used to see posters for this strategy in schools, often taught as “Flippy the Dolphin.” My concern is that it encourages children to guess or “flip” the sound. They may do this before trying a phonics rule. 

For example, they might check if the vowel is open or closed. Or they might see if it is part of a vowel team. Ultimately, this leads to careless reading that is more prone to mistakes. Check out RIF's the 6 (+1) Syllable Types worksheet to strengthen explicit phonics instruction and build confidence with unfamiliar words. 

5. Using the terms “high frequency words” and “sight words” interchangeably.  

This is mostly a matter of semantics. “High-frequency words” are the most commonly used words in written English, words that appear on nearly every page, such as “the,” “to,” and “and.” “Sight words,” meanwhile, are often described as irregularly spelled words that must be memorized, such as “of,” “to,” and “you.” Because the categories overlap, the terms are often used interchangeably.  

As readers become more skilled, most words eventually become sight words. What bothers me is not the terminology itself, but how these words are often taught. 

Because many educators and families assume memorization is the only approach, instruction often relies on rote methods such as flashcard drills. While this works for some children, it doesn’t work for everyone. I discussed a routine for supporting orthographic mapping (embedding words into long-term memory) with Dr. Molly Ness on a Reading Inspires podcast episode The Transformative Power of Reading Aloud with Dr. Molly Ness. 

6. Round Robin reading  

You may also know this as “popcorn reading.” Either way, it is a common classroom practice in which students take turns reading aloud while others follow along. This outdated approach has many problems, including exposing students to disfluent reading, reducing comprehension, and increasing anxiety.  

My recommendation is to implement research-based fluency strategies that my friend Dr. Chase Young demonstrates in this RIF webinar. 

7. Educators who underestimate the value of background knowledge.  

When I taught a graduate course on foundations to reading instruction, I began the semester with handing out an article that I found in a car mechanics journal asking students to read. 

During the debrief, most students admitted that they struggled to comprehend the article. While these were intelligent graduate students who could read all the words on the page, they did not have the background knowledge to comprehend what they were reading (nor did most of them have the motivation or a strong sense of purposes beyond a professor directing them to read). 

I started with this experience to demonstrate the importance of building background knowledge. A famous experiment in 1987 by Drs. Donna Recht and Lauren Leslie found that students’ background knowledge about baseball was a stronger predictor of reading comprehension than their general reading ability. Their findings show that prior knowledge provides a mental framework that helps readers make sense of text, highlighting the importance of building knowledge alongside teaching reading strategies.  

8. “Teaching” reading comprehension by asking comprehension questions.  

Simply put, asking comprehension questions after reading a text is not the same as teaching comprehension. Just as phonics requires explicit instruction, so does reading comprehension. Questions can support comprehension, but asking questions after reading is not enough to build a student’s comprehension. Teachers should use strategies such as modeling through think-alouds and gradually releasing responsibility to students.  

9. The belief that direct instruction and inquiry-based learning are at odds with each other.  

My background is in inquiry-based and project-based learning. With the Science of Reading, there is more focus on clear, direct instruction. People often ask me if these two approaches can work together. 

Direct instruction can, and should, be embedded into inquiry-based learning. It provides foundational knowledge, vocabulary, and skills that children need to apply, analyze, and extend their learning through exploration and problem-solving.   

As I touched on in #7, inquiry is most effective when children have sufficient background knowledge and teacher guidance. Direct instruction helps children acquire knowledge and skills while inquiry promotes critical thinking, engagement, application, and deeper understanding. 

The art of teaching comes in an educator’s ability to move strategically between the two approaches. This is something I explore in my upcoming podcast interview with Drs. Chase Young, Seth A. Parsons, and Allison Ward Parsons on their book Artfully Teaching Reading with Project-Based Learning: Literacy Lessons for the Elementary Classroom.  

10. Blaming teachers and families for “the literacy crisis.”   

It is undeniable that reading scores are at historic lows throughout our country. Everyone is looking for a finger to point. I often read that reading declines are due to technology, less reading at home, teacher shortages, and more. If you gave me all day, I could write quite a lengthy list of all the issues that impact childhood literacy.   

All of these are issues, and they are also all our issues to solve. At Reading Is Fundamental, we focus on awareness and book access. And we alone cannot solve the literacy crisis. It will take concerted efforts from families, educators, policy makers, and advocates to champion children’s rights to read and create solutions.   

To echo my friend Dr. Shanahan, “let’s do better.”  

These were my top 10 reading pet peeves. What are yours?