Again from the podcast:

"This is Sarah Gannon. She’s a teacher you met in Episode 3. She trusted Fountas and Pinnell and Lucy Calkins

Gannon: I trusted that they’re experts. I trusted that this is the way you teach reading.
She believed in the cueing and the leveled books. The first time she encountered criticism of that approach was in 2019, after one of my articles came out.

Gannon: Teacher friends were like, “Did you read this Emily Hanford? And I was like, “I read it.” And we were like, “What is she talking about?”
She was outraged. Because a journalist was questioning the way she taught reading.

And then, her daughter, Maeve.

(Music)
Maeve wasn’t learning how to read. Sarah tried to teach her. But it wasn’t working. So Sarah went looking for answers. And discovered the research.

Gannon: I changed because I had to. There was no choice. I couldn’t ignore it. I couldn’t keep doing what I was doing with Maeve.
The same thing happened to Carrie Chee. She was one of the Lucy Calkins fans you met in an earlier episode. The one who didn’t like George Bush.

One day, when Carrie’s daughter was in elementary school, she came to her mother and she said, “I have something to tell you.”

Carrie Chee: My child looked at me and she was really nervous and anxious, and she just says, “I can’t read.”
The school hadn’t said there was a problem. Carrie hadn’t noticed a problem either. But her daughter knew.

Chee: She knew. They know. You know, the kids know first. The parents know second. The teacher chimes in third. And then, you know, the hunt is on for help.
Some kids try to keep it a secret when they’re struggling. They can look like they’re reading for a while. But as the words get longer and the pictures go away, it all kind of falls apart.

(Music ends)
Carrie Chee was a 7th grade English teacher before she had her daughter. She says she always had struggling readers in her class. A lot of them. And the only thing she knew to do was to try to find them books about things they were interested in.

Chee: And I just kept saying, “Well keep trying.” And then when they couldn't, I just thought they didn't want to try. And what I’m haunted by is, when it wasn’t working, I blamed it on children.
Carrie Chee isn’t sure she would have learned anything about the science of reading if it weren’t for her experience with her own child. Sarah Gannon too. If everything had been fine with her daughter, she thinks she might still be dismissing all of this science of reading stuff.

Gannon: I don’t know if I could be convinced and that’s what worries me. You know, I have good friends who are very smart, incredibly talented educators who, it’s just like, hold fast to old beliefs. And I think, I, honestly, I think I would be one of them. You know. But I guess you have to say, like, it’s OK to be wrong. Like, I was wrong."

How many of their students have been irreparably damaged from their incompetence and unprofessionalism. It took for their family to be personally impacted that they actually looked into the research. If a doctor gave medicine that had terrible consequences without looking into it what would happen? Or an engineer who didn't look into the structural properties of a material and a bridge collapsed what would happen? What has happened to these educators, and those who advocated for this practices?