Podcasts · Society & Culture

Sold a Story

APM Reports

27 episodes · in order

Sold a Story is an investigative podcast about how kids learn — what works in the classroom, the science behind those insights and why that research often doesn’t make it into schools. Season 1 revealed why so many kids are struggling to learn how to read, and it sparked a wave of change across the country. In Season 2, we go beyond reading to look at teaching itself.

Episodes

  1. 1: The Problem

    · 33 min · S1 E1

    Lee Gaul watches his daughter’s lessons during Zoom school and discovers a dismaying truth: She can't read. Little Zoe isn't the only one. Sixty-five percent of fourth graders in the United States are not proficient…

  2. 2: The Idea

    · 51 min · S1 E2

    Sixty years ago, Marie Clay developed a way to teach reading she said would help kids who were falling behind. They’d catch up and never need help again. Today, her program remains popular, and her theory about how…

  3. 3: The Battle

    · 41 min · S1 E3

    President George W. Bush made improving reading instruction a priority. He got Congress to provide money to schools that used reading programs supported by scientific research. But backers of Marie Clay’s ideas saw…

  4. 4: The Superstar

    · 34 min · S1 E4

    Teachers sing songs about Lucy Calkins. The longtime professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College is one of the most influential people in American elementary education today. Her admirers call her books bibles.…

  5. 5: The Company

    · 47 min · S1 E5

    Teachers call books published by Heinemann their bibles. The company's products are in schools all over the country. Some of the products used to teach reading are rooted in a debunked idea about how children learn to…

  6. 6: The Reckoning

    · 42 min · S1 E6

    Lucy Calkins says she has learned from the science of reading. She's revised her materials. Fountas and Pinnell have not revised theirs. Their publisher, Heinemann, is still selling some products to teach reading that…

  7. Hard to Read: How American Schools Fail Kids with Dyslexia

    · 54 min · Bonus

    The parents knew something wasn’t right. The school said everything would be fine. But their kids weren’t learning how to read. In this documentary, originally published in September 2017, we look at why kids with…

  8. Hard Words: Why Aren't Our Kids Being Taught to Read?

    · 52 min · Bonus

    Jack Silva had a problem. He was the chief academic officer of a school district in Pennsylvania, and more than 40% of the kids in his district were not proficient readers. He didn't know much about how kids learn to…

  9. At a Loss for Words: What's Wrong with How Schools Teach Reading

    · 53 min · Bonus

    Molly Woodworth had a secret: She couldn’t read very well. She fought her way through text by looking at the first letter of a word and thinking of something that made sense. Reading was slow and laborious. Then she…

  10. What the Words Say

    · 53 min · Bonus

    There are kids like C.J. all over the country. Schools tell their parents they are reading at grade level, but the kids are not. And whether they ever get the help they need can depend a lot on their family income and…

  11. Brains On: How Do We Learn to Read — and Why is It Hard?

    · 38 min · Bonus

    This week we have an episode of a show called Brains On. It’s a science podcast for kids from our colleagues at APM. In this episode, Emily joins the Brains On hosts to talk about how people learn to read. Grab the…

  12. 7: Your Words

    · 25 min · S1 E7

    Voicemails, emails, tweets: We got a lot of messages from people after they heard Sold a Story. In this episode, we bring you some of their voices. A 10-year-old figures out why he has struggled to read. A mom stays up…

  13. 8: The Impact

    · 25 min · S1 E8

    Across the country, school districts are dropping textbooks, state legislatures are going so far as to ban teaching methods, and everyone, it seems, is talking about "the science of reading." Things have been changing…

  14. Introducing: Sold a Story en Español

    · 6:19 · Bonus

    A Spanish adaptation of Sold a Story is now available. Hosted by journalist Valeria Fernández, the podcast is condensed into one 58-minute episode, plus a conversation between Fernández and Emily Hanford for…

  15. 9: The Aftermath

    · 28 min · S1 E9

    Schools around the country are changing the way they teach reading. And that is having major consequences for people who sold the flawed idea we investigated in Sold a Story. But Lucy Calkins, Irene Fountas and Gay Su…

  16. 10: The Details

    · 31 min · S1 E10

    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…

  17. The Podcast That's Changing Education

    · 3:14 · Trailer

    Nationally acclaimed journalist Emily Hanford's work is changing the ways schools around the country teach reading. In this award-winning podcast, she investigates why so many schools use an approach that cognitive…

  18. 11: The Outlier

    · 31 min · S1 E11

    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…

  19. 12: The Evidence

    · 31 min · S1 E12

    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…

  20. 13: The List

    · 34 min · S1 E13

    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…

  21. 14: The Cuts

    · 38 min · S1 E14

    Education research is at a turning point in the United States. The Trump administration is slashing government funding for science and dismantling the Department of Education. We look at what the cuts mean for the…

  22. Emily Hanford LIVE with Reid Lyon and Margaret Goldberg

    · 58 min · Bonus

    Early in her teaching career, Margaret Goldberg was skeptical of the science of reading. Today, she is working with neuroscientist Reid Lyon to bring it into more classrooms. Lyon and Goldberg joined Sold a Story host…

  23. ‘Dyslexia and the Reading Wars’: Emily Hanford's Conversation with The New Yorker’s David Owen

    · 1 h 01 min · Bonus

    The New Yorker staff writer David Owen opened a recent piece with a personal story: To hide that she couldn’t read, his niece turned pages when her classmates did. Owen joined Sold a Story host Emily Hanford for a live…

  24. Sold a Story 2: What Happened to Teaching

    · 3:10 · Trailer

    Sold a Story is back with a new season that goes beyond reading. Emily Hanford explores an approach to teaching that's been largely rejected by the education system — despite decades of evidence that it works. Video:…

  25. S2 E1: It’s Not Just Reading

    · 21 min · S2 E1

    In the 1960s, an education outsider named Zig Engelmann begins challenging conventional ideas about what young children can learn. He teaches his 4-year-old twins basic algebra. But he has a hard time getting anyone in…

  26. S2 E2: The Remedy Is Always Teaching

    · 28 min · S2 E2

    At an experimental preschool in Illinois, Zig Engelmann and his colleagues begin turning his ideas into a classroom teaching method. Along the way, they make a series of discoveries about effective instruction. Their…

  27. S2 E3: The Forgotten Experiment

    · 31 min · S2 E3

    Zig Engelmann gets the chance of a lifetime: Put Direct Instruction to the test in one of the largest education experiments ever conducted. The results could have changed the direction of American education. Instead,…

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