Like others, I heartily recommend the "Sold a Story" podcast. It explores this issue in depth, and you'll walk away with a more complex understanding that you'd

Like others, I heartily recommend the "Sold a Story" podcast. It explores this issue in depth, and you'll walk away with a more complex understanding that you'd have after reading this article alone. Case in point: "balanced literacy" is not exactly a "method of teaching," as portrayed by this article. Rather, it's a loose conceptual framework that teachers and other curriculum planners have used in many ways. In theory, it does include phonics as one of the 5 core components of reading, and I know teachers (myself included) who have taught balanced literacy programs with an emphasis on phonics. On the flip side, this article is quick to point out that "science of reading" is not a specific program or curriculum, either. To see the many, many ways teachers have interpreted the "science of reading," just pop into any number of social media groups dedicated to this topic.