A perspective from a retired teacher, principal (Leeds School) and superintendent: There are some fair points to a recent guest column “Scripted early reading approach no substitute for real teaching,” but I’m on the “depends on the learner” side of this longstanding topic. My spouse is a lousy speller. She’s convinced it’s because she learned to read very early as the youngest and missed out on the essential phonemes and decoding that some learners need (English learners, reading challenged) Yogurt is yogert to her.

Roughly 30% of kids are left behind without “scripted” techniques and are often labeled as learning disabled later on. I’m not a fan of the headline in this column as using a different approach can be “real teaching.” All said, teachers need to know all approaches so they teach to the learner’s needs. Curriculum is not religion; it’s not about what you believe but about applying what you know to the learner.

Our teachers need to continue to learn all approaches through ongoing professional development. Does a doctor give the same medicine to each patient? They diagnose and apply the “best’ remedy” to each patient. Reading is always about beautiful literature at the level for the reader to hear from someone else; to read independently with ease, and another kind to learn new words and patterns. Such an important topic. If only the pendulum would stop swinging and settle on “knowledge is power.”

Dr. Suzanne Scallion

Yarmouth Port