As a Ph.D. student in learning sciences and a math education researcher who believes that young children are perceptive, reflective and brilliant, I embarked on a project to collect children’s stories of schooling during the pandemic.

From this, I drew a conclusion that has served as a guiding metaphor for my criticism of the education reform movement and the title of one of my books, Beware the Roadbuilders: Literature as Resistance (Garn Press): “Beware the roadbuilders. They are not here to serve you, they are on their way to bulldoze right over you.”

The work to overturn the Science of Reading narrative will be difficult. Parents and legislators like simple solutions to complex problems and terms like dyslexia and "settled science" are seductive. The stakes are high. The goal is clear. All professionals must work to foster a more nuanced view consistent with the research. Our children's access to informed instruction and a full, rich literacy depends on it.

It’s good that President Biden is focusing on updating school buildings in his infrastructure plan. But there’s another crisis his administration should address. America needs a national movement to get well-prepared teachers into our public school classrooms.

To answer that question we have to look at the process of reading and how children and young people respond. I've produced a checklist for teachers to discuss, adapt, argue within whatever ways they choose. Not in any particular order, reading for pleasure.

Most of the hard work of becoming a reader is done by the reader. We can help, but skilled reading is mostly a matter of the individual spending highly engaged time in the act of reading, making meaning, figuring out words, solving problems along the way. When vulnerable readers need help, reading helpers provide it. Here are some ways I think we can provide that help.

One of the paradoxes of writing by academics and scholars is that the focus on fidelity to the content and ideas at the exclusion of accessible and engaging expression serves to discredit and devalue that content and those ideas. Here, then, are some entry points for academics and scholars to re-imagine themselves as writers.

Inequities in children’s kindergarten experiences compound inequities in early childhood experiences. Research consistently shows the benefits of early childhood education for children’s development. But access to early learning opportunities has become even more inequitable in the pandemic, according to a report from the Center for American Progress.