Regular readers will recall that I have published at least 10 posts about the podcast called “Sold a Story” from American Public Media. (There’s a catalog of most of those at the end of this post.) In “Sold a Story,” Emily Hanford and her colleagues documented problems and changes in reading instruction that have been occurring in US schools.
They are back with more!
The team published four new installments in February and March of 2025. Whereas the earlier episodes documented the ways that literacy instruction in the US had fallen into an abyss, these take a different approach. In these, Ms. Hanford and her fellow journalists provide what amounts to a case study of early literacy done well. They weave together reporting about salient factors—government responses to what has been called “the literacy crises,” Success for All (a validated whole-school model of education that includes an effective literacy component), a local education agency’s (Steubenville, OH) remarkable success and more—with their previous narrative about reading, reading education, and adherence to scientific literacy.
These four installments in the on-going “Sold a Story” series cover topics that follow along on the landmark episodes from 2022 and 2023.1 Here are links to the newest episodes with brief notes (from APM) about each:
Episode 10: The Details
Some of the teachers, students, parents and researchers we met in Sold a Story talk about the impact the podcast has had on their lives and in schools — and share some of their hopes and concerns about the "science of reading" movement.
Episode 11: The Outlier
There's a school district in eastern Ohio where virtually all the students become good readers by the time they finish third grade. Many of the wealthiest places in the country can't even say that. And Steubenville is a Rust Belt town where the state considers almost all the students "economically disadvantaged." How did they do it?
12 The Evidence
There's a name for the program at the heart of Steubenville's remarkable reading results. It's called Success for All. It's been around for decades, and numerous studies have shown it's effective. But relatively few school districts use it. We trace the history of the program and why it's never really caught on.
13 The List
Steubenville became a model of reading success. Then a new law in Ohio put it all at risk. In this episode, we look at the "science of reading" lists some states are making, why the program Steubenville has been using for 25 years isn't getting on many of these lists, and the surprising power of one curriculum review group.
Connection to current events
At the end of the fourth 2025 installment, Ms. Hanford et al. drop a very important observation. For those who are reading this post at the time that I published it, you will be familiar with the upset in education that occurred then in the US. Ms. Hanford refers to those current events in a plea for listeners feedback and contributions:
Before we go, I want to say one more thing. A main theme of this podcast is — research matters. And the body of research known as the “science of reading” — a lot of that research was funded by federal grants. I’m recording this in early March of 2025. The Trump administration recently announced it is terminating hundreds of millions of dollars in federal contracts related to education research — including research on reading. If you have information you’d like to share with us about that or anything else, we want to hear from you. You can call us, send us a voice memo, or write us an email. Our address is soldastory@apmreports.org. The number is (612) 888-7323. That’s (612) 888-READ. All those ways to reach us are in the show notes. Let us know if we need to keep your name or other identifying details confidential.
Why does SET care?
A few readers of SET may wonder why the matters discussed in the “Sold a Story” podcasts merit consideration in this venue. Isn’t this about a general education problem? I’m pretty sure that covering “Sold a Story” is important for us for at least three reasons:
Many students with disabilities require effective reading and writing instruction, so we should be paying attention to efforts to improve that teaching. Our kids—and not just those with dyslexia—deserve evidence-based literacy instruction, and “Sold a Story” is advocating for providing that instruction.
Effective literacy instruction for students with substantial disabilities is likely to be influenced by ideas raised in “Sold a Story.” Indeed, a dispassionate review of effective literacy practices already in use for students with intellectual disabilities will likely reveal that scholars who have worked in those areas (e.g., Browder et al., 2006, 2020; Williams, 2024) use closely related practices and have approaches to evidence that correspond to what one learns in “Sold a Story.”
Some of the big-picture ideas (evidence and applications in the real world) promoted by “Sold a Story” are just what I hope readers of SET adopt.
Earlier SET posts
Here you have a list of previous posts on SET related to “Sold a Story.” Please note that I ordered this list chronologically. The order does not reflect which posts were most popular, got the best external reviews, are my favorites, have the most useful tips, or anything else.
Also, please note that this list is pretty close to exhaustive about the references to “Sold a Story” on SET. It is no where near exhaustive of the extensive external coverage of the work by Ms. Hanford and her colleagues.
17 October 2022—E. Hanford’s Podcast on reading education is coming soon;
21 October 2022—Episodes 1 and 2 of “Sold a Story”;
27 October 2022—Episode 3 of “Sold a Story” dropped;
4 November 2022—“Sold a Story” episode 4;
10 November 2022—Sold a Story—Episode 5;
20 November 2022—What have you heard people say about E. Hanford’s Sold a Story;
12 May 2023—Another installment in “Sold a Story”;
19 May 2023—Sold a Story: “Bonus 2” dropped;
10 October 2023—"Sold a Story" received a Murrow award;
24 March 2024—Sold a Story in Español
Discussion
In my view, these episodes of “Sold a Story” are examples of excellent journalism. They provide well-researched and well-reported accounts of important aspects of a current issue. To be sure, we could pick at them, quibble about some details, beg for slightly different coverage of this or that…but that would just be nibbling at some crumbs. The big picture—main course?—is that “Sold a Story” is a source from which we educators can learn valuable ideas.
I hope readers of SET will listen to the podcasts and provide feedback to the “Sold a Story” team.
References
Browder, D. M., Spooner, F., & Courtade, G. R. (2020). Teaching students with moderate and severe disabilities. Guilford.
Browder, D. M., Wakeman, S. Y., Spooner, F., Ahlgrim-Delzell, L., & Algozzine, B. (2006). Research on reading instruction for individuals with significant cognitive disabilities. Exceptional Children, 4(3), 392–408. https://doi.org/10.1177/001440290607200401
Williams, A. N. (2024). A review of reading interventions for students with moderate and severe intellectual disabilities. Journal of Special Education, https://doi.org/10.1177/00224669241268622
Footnotes
As do the earlier episodes, those of February and March 2025 are also related to additional content APM has published.
Another reason that Sold A Story is relevant to Special Education Today. A lot of kids get placed in special ed who would not be there if they had just had good instruction to begin with. We could be freeing up special ed case loads by providing better regular ed.
I'm currently researching the history of reading instruction going back 200 years, as part of a book I'm writing. That section of the book is a prequel to Sold A Story. Problems with reading instruction and arguments over it have a long history! I'm looking for threads of false beliefs about reading that started in the 1820's, and seeing how some of those false beliefs about literacy still play out in reading, and also just as importantly in writing instruction.