Media, Legislation, and the Science of Reading: Understanding Policy Narratives for a Path to Collaboration

Abstract

Using frame analysis, the present study examined the intersections of science of reading research, media coverage, and state literacy policy to explore how Colorado policy and media documents have defined reading achievement. It also analyzed the values, assumptions, and agendas within these definitions. It identified diagnostic frames that defined a state-level problem with reading education and prognostic frames that proposed curriculum and teacher training mandates as solutions. Underlying these frames were assumptions of objectivity, agendas of top-down accountability, and a binary separation between effective and ineffective methods for the teaching of reading. Implications include the development of a critical pragmatism in which researchers, teachers, school leaders, and other practitioners can collaborate to navigate shifts required by legislation while reflecting on the ways in which such shifts are situated in larger narratives. The authors argue that such analyses are essential for implementing reading reform in ways that are equitable and responsive to local contexts.