Sold a Story: An Investigative Podcast from APM Reports by Emily Hanford and the APM Reports Team. Debuting in 2022, it wades into one of the most critical and concerning issues in American education: the ways children are taught to read.
The Core Premise
The podcast explains that for decades, schools around the U.S. employed this faulty method of reading instruction. Rather than emphasize teaching phonics (which instructs children to decode words based on the sounds they make), many educators instead relied on “cueing” systems that promoted guessing words based on context. This approach was seductive, but it often rendered students desperate.
The Human Cost
Hanford chronicles the millions of children who were affected by these mistaken approaches. Tons of students never learned to solidly read, and the shortcomings eventually turned into frustration and shame and lifelong academic failure. Parents, teachers and literacy advocates share tear- and anger-inducing anecdotes about children falling behind even though they went to schools that insisted that they made their focus on reading.
How Did It Happen?
The podcast explores how education publishers, consultants and some powerful leaders advanced these teaching techniques. This ideology influenced the textbooks and school policies as well as teacher training, even as the research kept demonstrating that phonics was more effective. Hanford demonstrates how commercial and business considerations frequently prevailed over scientific rationality.
Investigative Style
What gives Sold a Story its force is the combination of personal stories and long-form investigative journalism. We hear from parents desperate to assist their children, teachers struggling with guilt and policymakers who missed evidence. The show presents a stark picture of systemic failure.
Reception
The podcast touched off national conversations about how children are learning to read. Educators across the country started re-evaluating curricula and some states adopted changes to return the emphasis to phonics. Many described the podcast as both devastating and necessary listening.
The Plot in a Sentence
At its heart, Sold a Story is a story about how American schools, following poor educational practices and publishing trends, accidentally failed a whole generation of children, leaving millions of kids unable to read, spawning a crisis that impacts families still.