The goal should be for students to be critical thinkers — able to analyze, question, and debate the text they read. Proponents of balanced literacy said the technique would create a generation of “natural readers.” According to behavioral analyst and educator Dr. Jennifer Weber, though, it created a generation that’s unable to engage with text or ideas instead.
According to Weber, while the US education system promised that balanced literacy would teach kids critical thinking, it failed right at the first step: the way it taught them how to read.
Reading Is Thinking in Action
Reading goes beyond just recognizing words — it should help us engage in an internal dialogue with ourselves. We get to be both the speaker and listener. The speaker in us decodes the words, while the listener in us interprets, questions, and makes meaning from those words.
When you read something complex, you most likely pause in places to rephrase a sentence in your head, ask yourself if the sentence makes sense, or even mentally debate the idea it describes. That’s how your inner listener responds to your inner speaker.
But when students never learn to read fluently, they struggle to engage in this internal dialogue at any level, which means they don’t critically evaluate what they read. Instead, they become passive consumers of information; they rely on external sources (e.g., news headlines, influencers, and professors) to tell them what they should think.
Balanced literacy, according to Weber, didn’t just fail to teach reading, but it trained students out of deep and meaningful thinking.
What Went Wrong?
Educators promised parents that using balanced literacy would turn kids into “natural” readers. No longer focusing on the evidence-based methods of explicit phonics and decoding, the new method encouraged guessing words based on pictures, memorizing sight words instead of understanding the letter-sound relationships of which they were composed, and skipping unfamiliar words if the students “got the gist.”
The result was a generation of students who could “read” but who never developed real comprehension skills. It was a system-wide failure that shaped an entire generation’s inability to think critically, as documented by investigative journalist Emily Hanford in her podcast Sold a Story. Balanced literacy wasn’t just an ineffective technique; it actively reinforced bad reading habits that made critical thinking more difficult.
Poor Reading Skills, Poor Critical Thinking
Deep reading and deep thinking necessarily go together. If a student can’t process the text fully, how can they follow complex reasoning, compare different points of view, or identify logical fallacies and biases?
Psychologist B.J. Skinner’s work helps explain why they can’t, why they need fluency. Fluency in reading allows for deep internal dialogue: the ability to analyze, question, and process information internally.
Balanced literacy disrupted that process. Fluent, automatic decoding frees up mental energy for comprehension, but balanced literacy trained students to guess, skim, and move on even if they didn’t understand. Students became used to surface-level reading and therefore applied surface-level thinking to it and everything else.
This led to two major problematic consequences. First, students have to rely on emotional reasoning instead of logical analysis. Since non-fluent readers can’t break down arguments, they default to gut feelings that may not represent what’s on the page.
Second, students must depend on external sources for understanding. If reading is difficult, they simply turn to social media soundbites, influencers, and news outlets to shape their opinions. If they can’t engage with written text, they’ll always have to rely on others to tell them what to think.
A Generation that Can’t Engage in Complex Thought
We see this lack of complex thought in today’s discourse. Instead of engaging in complex discussions about important issues such as geopolitics, history, or ethics; or forming original arguments, many students simply repeat phrases, headlines, or slogans they’ve seen or heard.
Instead of analyzing a text’s facts, they react emotionally. Instead of considering that an issue has multiple perspectives, they see everything only in black and white. A lack of reading skills has led to a lack of complex thinking across all areas of life.
The Bottom Line: Balanced Literacy Reinforced Passive Thinking
Balanced literacy failed a whole generation of students intellectually. It discouraged precision, so now these adults are more susceptible to misinformation and oversimplified narratives.
We can’t expect students to think critically if they weren’t taught to read properly. If we want a future of independent thinkers, it’s time to start changing how we teach reading. Everything else depends on it.
Citation:
Weber, Jennifer. (March 2, 2025). “Why the Way We Taught Reading Undermined an Entire Generation’s Ability to Reason.” Retrieved from https://substack.com/home/post/p-158249724.
