Sold a Story
Episodes
Emily Hanford LIVE from Planet Word with Reid Lyon and Margaret Goldberg
09 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Early in her teaching career, Margaret Goldberg was skeptical of the science of reading. Today, she is working with neuroscientist Reid Lyon to brin...
14: The Cuts
21 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Education research is at a turning point in the United States. The Trump administration is slashing government funding for science and dismantling the...
13: The List
06 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
12: The Evidence
27 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 de...
11: The Outlier
20 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 weal...
The podcast that's changing education
01 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Nationally acclaimed journalist Emily Hanford's work is changing the ways schools around the country teach reading. In this award-winning podcast, she...
10: The Details
11 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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...
9: The Aftermath
04 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 inves...
Introducing: Sold a Story en español
19 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A Spanish adaptation of Sold a Story is now available. Hosted by journalist Valeria Fernández, the podcast is condensed into one 58-minute episode, ...
8: The Impact
18 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Across the country, school districts are dropping textbooks, state legislatures are going so far as to ban teaching methods, and everyone, it seems, i...
7: Your Words
11 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Brains On: How Do We Learn to Read — and Why is It Hard?
11 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 th...
What the Words Say
06 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 ev...
At a Loss for Words: What's Wrong with How Schools Teach Reading
30 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Hard Words: Why Aren't Our Kids Being Taught to Read?
23 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 n...
Hard to Read: How American Schools Fail Kids with Dyslexia
16 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 documentar...
6: The Reckoning
17 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Lucy Calkins says she has learned from the science of reading. She's revised her materials. Fountas and Pinnell have not revised theirs. Their publish...
5: The Company
10 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 teac...
4: The Superstar
03 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Teachers sing songs about Lucy Calkins. The longtime professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College is one of the most influential people in Am...
3: The Battle
27 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
President George W. Bush made improving reading instruction a priority. He got Congress to provide money to schools that used reading programs support...
2: The Idea
20 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 a...
1: The Problem
20 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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-fiv...