In the 1987 film Babette’s Feast, two pious sisters take in a French refugee who works as their housemaid for fourteen years. When she wins the lottery, the woman (Babette) chooses to repay the sisters for their kindness by preparing a feast. As it turns out, unbeknownst to the sisters, she was the head chef at a famed restaurant in her former life in Paris. Babette commits her newly acquired financial resources, along with her well-honed artistry, to the task of planning and preparing an extraordinary meal for the sisters and their friends. The meal helps the community to become more unified and proves life-changing for the residents. Babette’s donation of all of her lottery winnings to this single culinary experience contributes to the profundity of the gift.
In response to Babette’s story, one could deliberate about what was most important: Babette’s painstaking preparation of the meal or the diners’ transformative experience of eating it.
Surely the experience was most important, you might say. The meal itself was the whole point of the preparation! But the experience wouldn’t even exist without all of the preparation—ordering quails from France, selecting wine for each course, and purchasing tableware. So, the planning and the forethought that went into the meal must be the most important aspect of the story.
“But surely the means is not the end,” you might say. “One shouldn’t focus on ironing the tablecloth and plucking quails rather than on the consummate whole of the dining experience!”
Such a circular argument would obviously be pointless (and endless), perpetuating itself with no pathway to resolution (sound familiar?) because both the preparation and the meal are critical to the story. To argue about the importance of co-dependent elements is, at least to some extent, to argue for the sake of arguing.
Comparable round-and-rounds persist in literacy.
As schools and educators embrace teaching foundational skills differently, positive shifts are transforming literacy instruction. More teachers are providing clear, systematic instruction, more students are understanding how the alphabetic system works, and more children are learning to decode with confidence.
But, with any substantial overhaul to instruction, there’s a natural tendency toward overcorrection. In a rush to address long-standing gaps in foundational skills instruction, other critical aspects of literacy—like language comprehension and engagement—may be unintentionally sidelined.
Of course, to argue about which is more important, foundational skills or language comprehension, is a bit like arguing about whether Babette’s preparation or the dining experience was most important—there is no answer to that question because it basically misses the point.
The question we now face is not whether foundational skills are essential—they absolutely are—but how to ensure that these skills are taught in balance (yes, we said it) with the broader goals of literacy. Without some balance, we risk creating new challenges, such as children who can decode fluently but struggle to understand and connect with what they read.
While we recognize that the word balance triggers strong and even angry responses from some people whose voices we want to hear, we can’t get around the fact that the term balance beautifully captures so much of the difficulty of teaching and even of living. Much like being on a seesaw, the work is in the constant back and forth, not in trying to reach absolute evenness or stasis.
On a seesaw, just as we find ourselves suspended in an elusory moment of perfect balance, we know that an extra wiggle, a small breath exhaled, or an itch scratched will knock us from the suspended middle. Even when we manage to find a moment when there is just enough give and just enough take to hold on to that elusive sense of centeredness and control, the force from one side or the other bumps us back into motion.
The breathy, suspenseful work of balance, however, isn’t in reaching equilibrium; it is in constantly working toward it. It is in being almost there, in recovering from temporary setbacks before you hit bottom, in solving an “up problem” with a little bounce or a “down problem” with a little push. It’s about testing that point of equilibrium, experimenting with push and pull, scooting up and back in the seat, or moving out to the edge, all the while remembering the few seconds when we learned how the middle feels and when we first appreciated the centeredness of sitting motionless on a simple machine that prefers to move.
This post explores some causes of overcorrection and the risks of over-attention to foundational skills, as well as practical ways educators can foster both strong decoding skills and deep comprehension, ensuring that every child develops into a confident and joyful reader.
The Benefits of Explicit Foundational Skills Instruction
Across elementary classrooms, we see encouraging signs of progress with foundational skills instruction. These recent shifts in instruction mean we’re moving away from expecting children to intuit how the alphabetic system works or guess words based on context or pictures. Instead, teachers now explicitly teach the code—letter-sound correspondences and blending skills—giving students reliable tools to decode words. As a result, children are learning to rely on print to solve tricky words rather than working around it.
Now, with the trend toward more explicit word reading instruction appearing to pay off, it’s time to ensure this foundational work complements (doesn’t replace) instruction in comprehension and vocabulary instruction and instills a lasting love for reading.
Reconsidering Our Assumptions
When we first began exploring the science of reading, and with pretty much every group to whom we’ve spoken since, we’ve shared many of the concerns common among balanced literacy educators:
- Would children learn to decode but not comprehend?
- Would they become fluent “word-callers” who don’t think about the text?
- Would extreme implementations—like eliminating pictures, overusing worksheets, or relying solely on whole-class instruction—take over?
- Would differentiation suffer, and would children be tracked into rigid groups?
- Would read-alouds, picture books, and a love of reading disappear?
As we studied the body of research about how the brain learns to read, three key understandings shifted our thinking (pun intended 😊):
- Understanding the alphabetic system is essential for reading success—and this isn’t easy or natural work for the human brain.
- Advocates pushing for more explicit foundational skills shared our vision of children developing into confident, joyful readers.
- Many of the issues we worried about—worksheets, disengaged students, inequity—already existed in classrooms, could be avoided, and weren’t caused by science-based instruction.
These realizations were challenging to accept (we like being right, after all!). But as our understanding deepened, we saw how these shifts, though necessary, could also create conflict—both within ourselves and across the field.
“Balancing” Passion and Practice in the Reading Wars
Fortunately, there is a lot of passion among literacy educators, regardless of their theoretical loyalties. What we believe, we REALLY believe—and we’ll fight for those beliefs, even when facts challenge them. But because educator passion is rooted in doing what’s right for children, once we understand a shift is needed, we’re usually ready to figure out how to make it happen.
As we’ve learned how the brain learns to read, we’ve also had to address blind spots in instruction without creating new problems. In our work with Shifting the Balance—writing, presenting, demonstrating, etc.—from the start, we’ve highlighted the risk of overcorrecting toward word-reading skills at the expense of language comprehension. This is part of why Shift 1 in both the K–2 and 3–5 editions of Shifting the Balance focuses on comprehension. It’s also why our Blending Magic resources connect decoding practice to vocabulary development, and our decodable texts always offer readers something worthwhile to think about and talk about.
Yet this kind of connecting work—integrating word reading practice with comprehension and language development—is anything but commonplace these days. While many teachers are working to bridge the gaps in mandated programs, avoiding overcorrection is not simple. The equal and opposite reaction to putting so much energy into foundational skills instruction and practice is that less time is spent on comprehension and language development, especially in K–2. As a result, more children risk becoming “word-callers”—decoding accurately but struggling to understand what they read.
This doesn’t mean explicit foundational skills instruction isn’t essential. Learning the alphabetic system is critical. And intentional and comprehensive foundational skills instruction doesn’t inherently cause comprehension difficulties—just as eating ice cream doesn’t cause shark attacks, even though both increase in summer.
Now, new questions are starting to roll in—from social media, our course participants, and other educators in the field:
- Are we overdoing phonics?
- Have we shifted too far toward foundational skills?
- What about comprehension?
- Are we neglecting the other side of the coin?
These are questions worth lingering on. As we embrace foundational skills instruction, we must examine its blindspots—without throwing the baby out with the bathwater—even as these efforts take root.
Why Good Ideas Often Lead to Overcorrection
Let’s be clear: overcorrection usually comes from a good place. When we see a systemic problem—like the neglect of foundational skills or a lack of focus on meaning-making—it’s natural to act decisively. What starts as a necessary shift can sometimes snowball into “too much of a good thing,” introducing new challenges and unintended consequences. It’s like a partner unexpectedly jumping off the downside of a seesaw, leaving you to crash to the ground with a jolt, realizing that too much has changed too quickly.
The truth is that both word reading and deep thinking about text are essential for proficiency and engagement. You know the debate. Is mastery of sound-symbol correspondences the priority, or is it the joy of engaging with text? Do we want children to read for accuracy or understanding? Surely, comprehension is the ultimate goal—but thoughtful engagement with text requires understanding how the print system works. Before meaning can be made, graphemes must connect to phonemes to form meaningful, recognizable words. Wait, you might say, this brings us back to meaning! Decoding serves comprehension, not the other way around.
So, what might be contributing to our current trajectory toward overcorrection? There are several possible factors:
- The brain can’t focus on two priorities at once, like a seesaw that can’t be up on both sides.
- The very goodness of an idea tempts us to push it too far.
- We feel heartbroken for students who weren’t taught the alphabetic code effectively and can’t resist overcompensating.
- Limited resources mean a shift toward one focus that inevitably detracts from another.
- Deep down, we still hope for a silver bullet, even though we know it doesn’t exist.
- “Both/and” thinking is easy to discuss but hard to sustain in classrooms filled with personalities, pressures, and complexities.
Whatever the reason—and it is likely a combination of many of the above—history has taught us that overcorrection in one direction can eventually trigger overcorrection in the opposite direction.
Examples of Overcorrections (and How to Address Them)
As we visit schools and classrooms, we see certain practices that could be red flags of overcorrection. Below are examples of instructional trends that, while rooted in good intentions, risk narrowing students’ literacy experiences.
Phonics Taking Center Stage
➔ Why It Matters
Phonics instruction has rightly become central to early literacy, but it dominates the literacy block in some classrooms. This leaves little room for vocabulary development, comprehension instruction, or building background knowledge. While phonics is essential, it needs to coexist with work that fosters oral language, critical thinking, attention to a text’s meaning, and a love of reading.
➔ What We Might Do About It
Balance phonics lessons with read-aloud, collaborative discussions, and writing tasks. These activities can connect and integrate skill-building with meaning-making, ensuring that decoding is part of a richer literacy experience.
Decoding Isolated Words Without Understanding Their Meaning
➔ Why It Matters
In the quest to build strong decoders, some classrooms focus on word-reading exercises disconnected from meaning-making. This risks creating students who decode accurately but fail to understand or connect with what they read, limiting their engagement and comprehension skills.
➔ What We Might Do About It
When practicing decoding with word lists, integrate a brief focus on word meanings to deepen understanding and vocabulary development. Encourage students to connect words to ideas through conversation and writing tasks. Discuss the significance of words to link decoding with comprehension. We’ve written about bringing more meaning into word reading instruction in this blog post. We’ve also designed Blending Magic, a resource that helps you bring decoding and spelling practice together with vocabulary and oral language development. You can learn more and get a free sample here.
Decodable Texts That are Confusing or Give Students Little to Think About
➔ Why It Matters
Decodable texts are essential for practicing phonics skills, but many lack depth or clarity, often including repetitive rhymes or unnatural sentence structures. While it’s challenging to write meaningful and thought-provoking decodable texts, it’s not impossible. Poor or mediocre texts limit students’ exposure to rich vocabulary and ideas, reinforcing the misconception that reading is just about decoding words. Without engaging storylines, relatable characters, or opportunities for deeper thinking, reading can feel mechanical, robbing students of the joy and curiosity that should accompany literacy.
➔ What We Might Do About It
Select decodable texts with interesting storylines, relatable characters, or relevant topics, and pair them with read-alouds or discussions to expand students’ thinking and engagement. We’ve written about decodable text selection here. Additionally, we’ve created free decodable texts that give students meaningful content to think and talk about while practicing sustainable reading processes. You can access these free decodable books in multiple formats here.
Too Much Explaining, Not Enough Engagement
➔ Why It Matters
Explicit instruction is crucial, but too much teacher talk can reduce student engagement. When lessons become a series of explanations, students may miss opportunities to actively practice and explore skills, leading to disengagement and limited ownership of their learning.
➔ What We Might Do About It
Make instruction quick-paced and interactive. Incorporate multi-sensory tools, collaborative tasks, and hands-on activities. To keep students actively involved, allow them to apply their skills through writing, partner exchanges, and frequent opportunities to “try on” new learning.
Reclaiming “Balance” in Literacy Instruction
Over-correction isn’t new, but it’s urgent for us to amplify our voices now. Those who value both explicit foundational skills instruction and deep, joyful engagement with rich texts must advocate for balance, even as we move beyond traditional balanced literacy. Centering explicit phonics at the expense of everything else risks repeating past mistakes—swinging too far in one direction and losing sight of the bigger picture.
Still, avoiding overcorrection is easier said than done, as history has shown. Even the most thoughtful educators can unintentionally focus too heavily on one aspect of instruction, especially when research highlights an area that has been long neglected. Keeping balance means we must actively resist the pull of overcorrection. Being aware of the tendency to take an effort too far is only the beginning. It also takes action. Here are four cautions and four things to try:
🚩 Red Flag: All your professional development is clearly one-sided.
What to Try—Foster Ongoing Reflection and Collaboration
Dedicate time for teams to evaluate instructional practices and ensure both foundational skills and comprehension are adequately addressed. Create space for open dialogue about how initiatives impact literacy as a whole.
🚩 Red Flag: The distribution of instructional minutes for one instructional component far outweighs the dedicated time for the others.
What to Try—Adopt a "Both/And" Mindset
Plan lessons integrating comprehension and vocabulary building into foundational skills work. Pair decodable texts with read-aloud or integrate word learning into oral language activities to spark curiosity and deep thinking.
🚩 Red Flag: Read-aloud has diminished or disappeared as phonics instruction increased, and students are often given decodable texts that lack meaningful content.
What to Try—Give Language Comprehension a Seat of Honor at the Instructional Table
Select high-quality decodable texts that encourage deep understanding as early as possible, especially in K–2, where foundational reading habits are formed. Read aloud thoughtfully and frequently, emphasizing vocabulary, knowledge-building, complex sentence structures, and—most importantly—the central ideas essential to understanding the text.
🚩 Red Flag: Assessments and consequent interventions decidedly favor easily measured proficiencies, such as discrete skills.
What to Try—Prioritize Holistic Student Success
Monitor progress across all areas of literacy, including phonics, comprehension, vocabulary, and engagement. Use formative assessments, classroom discussions, and student reflections to nurture every dimension of reading.
To avoid the human tendency to put all our eggs in one basket, we need to establish clear protocols, resources, and routines that go beyond mere acknowledgment of the problem. Recognizing our vulnerability to the lure of efficiency and novelty is a starting point, but self-awareness alone isn’t enough to safeguard against overcorrection. Achieving meaningful change will require intentional actions, thoughtful planning, consistent follow-through, and, most importantly, continual and honest reflection.
Hope for Lasting Progress
Educators constantly work in a space of tension, juggling limited time, resources, and evolving expectations. It’s no wonder overcorrection happens. But the fact that so many care deeply enough to wrestle with these complexities is a hopeful reminder of why we all do this work. By holding space for balance, complexity, and nuance, we can help students not just learn to read words accurately and proficiently but also to see them as they are—gateways to understanding, curiosity, and joy.
Even with some overcorrection, we’re optimistic that this time, we can prevent the pendulum from swinging too far. Maybe this can be the moment we stay attuned to both sides of the reading equation—word recognition and language comprehension—ensuring neither is neglected.
Striking balance is critical, even if balanced literacy practices have fallen short in the past. Without balance, we risk uneven outcomes that could prompt critics to say, “See, explicit phonics doesn’t work,” undermining the hard-earned progress we’ve made. This is the work we’re called to do—not for the sake of argument but for the sake of every child who deserves to read with confidence and joy.
Together, let’s make this round the time we get it right.
