Nine years ago I published an post entitled “Why America Can’t Read.” It proved to be a hot topic. In spite of what many consider herculean efforts, reading scores have not improved over the last nine years based on the National Test of Educational Progress known as the “Nation’s Report Card.” In fact, scores have remained flatlined and in schools with struggling students, scores have dipped below pre-COVID levels (Goldstein, 2023). As reported in the 2017 post, a missing piece of the puzzling lack of progress is based on the crucial role of spelling in the brain for reading.

In the 2017 post I critiqued the major popular whole language/balanced literacy reading programs that have failed largely due to their inadequate and haphazard delivery of spelling instruction (Gentry, 2017; Swartz, 2019). Schools where English spelling is not being taught explicitly will continue to have many students who struggle with reading as they do today.

Neuroscience makes a compelling case supporting spelling for reading. Take for example the work of France’s world-renowned neuroscientist Dr. Stanislas Dehaene whose 30-year career in neuroimaging continues to illuminate how the brain learns to read. He speaks and writes eloquently about how the brain reads (Dehaene, 2009). Dehaene explains that reading is a visual coding system for mapping to one’s already existing spoken language to create meaning. You can’t read without activating your memory of spelling images in your brain. See this Psychology Today post by Ralph Lewis on the neural basis of what constitutes memory including spelling.

To write a message you use the same system, they are two sides of the same coin. You use the spoken language in your brain to compose a piece with words. Without English spelling stored in your long-term memory, you can’t write in English. Humans are born with circuitry for learning to speak but no one is born with circuitry for literacy. Since English spelling is at the very core of the reading/writing brain, this complex orthography should be taught explicitly to all learners of English.

Spelling books are essential tools for optimal teaching of reading and writing. Noah Webster knew this in 1783 when his first American reading textbook was published to phase out the use of British spelling books for teaching reading in America. Webster’s first reader, popularly referred to as the “Blue-backed Speller,” sold over 80 million copies over the next century. Using a spelling-to-read method, Webster is credited with teaching America to read and being the founding father of American education. Three........

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