American Reading Company released a document in 2020 that aimed to address ARC Core and the Science of Reading. This document contains a number of problematic statements, which we will explore further, below:
As we have pointed out in numerous places already, EdReports used flawed methodology to review foundational skills when they reviewed ARC Core in 2017. Furthermore, two of the three states (Texas and Louisiana) that ARC cites as evidence no longer allow ARC Core in K-2.
This statement is false. There is abundant evidence that ARC Core (2017) explicitly directed students to utilize three-cueing strategies for word recognition. Evidence from the books, Skills Cards, and IRLA can be seen here.
In this document, ARC describes their phonics strategy and states that this approach is explicit:
In early Kindergarten, this analytic approach begins with letter names and sounds. Next, students use their emerging phonemic awareness and “partial-alphabetic” skills to learn to read and spell a controlled set of high-leverage words (mostly rimes, such as -at and -it as well as essential words, such as the and is). As soon as students are ready, usually by the end of Kindergarten/beginning of first grade, they learn to manipulate these known letter sounds, rimes, and words to read and spell words in the same word families—the heart of the analytic approach. By middle to late first grade, the rime units are segmented, leading to a more fine-grained letter-sound reading/spelling process.
Analysis of this Statement:
This approach is primarily an implicit, or analytic, approach, even though it includes some elements that might seem direct. The key phrases that identify it as primarily implicit are:
"students use their emerging phonemic awareness and 'partial-alphabetic' skills to learn to read and spell a controlled set of high-leverage words (mostly rimes, such as -at and -it as well as essential words, such as the and is)."
"As soon as students are ready... they learn to manipulate these known letter sounds, rimes, and words to read and spell words in the same word families—the heart of the analytic approach."
Why it's Primarily Implicit/Analytic:
Reliance on "Emerging" and "Partial-Alphabetic" Skills: This suggests that the full, explicit understanding of individual letter-sound correspondences and their blending isn't fully established before students start working with words. Instead, they are expected to build on incomplete knowledge.
Focus on Whole Rimes (-at, -it): While teaching letter names and sounds is a direct element, the immediate jump to whole rimes (like -at) rather than explicitly teaching /a/ and /t/ separately and then blending them, is characteristic of analytic phonics. Students are expected to recognize the pattern of the rime rather than build it from individual sounds.
"Manipulate these known letter sounds, rimes, and words": This implies a discovery or inference process. Students are working with larger chunks and are expected to deduce or analyze how changes in initial sounds create new words in a family (e.g., "cat" from "at" by adding "c"). The individual sounds within the rime are not being explicitly segmented and blended at this early stage.
"the heart of the analytic approach": The description explicitly labels the word family work as the "heart of the analytic approach," which confirms the intent.
Segmentation Comes Later ("By middle to late first grade, the rime units are segmented"): The fact that "rime units are segmented" and lead to "a more fine-grained letter-sound reading/spelling process" later in first grade indicates that the initial instruction with rimes was not explicit at the phoneme level. In a truly explicit (synthetic) approach, fine-grained segmentation and blending of individual sounds would be taught much earlier, often from the very beginning of kindergarten.
Why some parts might seem explicit but don't define the overall approach:
"begins with letter names and sounds": Explicit instruction often starts with letter names and sounds. However, the subsequent use of these sounds within whole rimes before full phonemic segmentation and blending is mastered is what shifts it away from a fully explicit, synthetic approach. If it explicitly taught /b/ then /a/ then /t/ and how to blend them before presenting "bat" or "at," that would be explicit synthetic phonics.
In conclusion: The description aligns with an analytic phonics approach where students learn to recognize patterns in words (like rimes) and then infer or analyze the sounds, with fine-grained segmentation coming later. This reliance on discovery and later segmentation makes it an implicit approach to early phonics instruction, despite its mention of initial letter sounds.