Although literacy education may not be a life science, literacy and education are certainly ways of life. It might also be constructively suggested that whatever the lenses through which humans may be viewed (e.g., linguistic, cultural, social, historical), they are most certainly living beings. Within those keywords, life and being, lies a kernel, a seed, a germ cell if you will (biological metaphors all) of a few questions: Can adolescent literacy education, theoretically inspired and informed historically by nearly all of the social sciences, be similarly and usefully inspired by theory and research from the life sciences? Can literacy ever be discussed as being biological with the ease with which it is discussed as being social, cognitive, or critical? Can we ever say that literacy is living, in a substantive rather than merely figurative sense?

Why Organic Motifs Engage Me

The ILA (2018) brief calls for a reorientation of current literacy teacher preparation toward a growth emphasis and, for good measure, mentions change, transformation, and even evolution and variation. The brief notes that earlier themes never entirely disappear but continue to influence our thinking about literacy learning and teacher preparation into the future. It suggests a seamless transformation of the current sociocognitive and cultural status quos to include growth motifs and idioms. The seeds of growth are already sown within the sociocultural tradition, so to speak. The social dimension of literacy is well acknowledged; we have been there and mastered that, and now it's time to grow a head taller still.

Perennial Wisdom of the Ages

Any pack of seeds will produce different results, seed to seed. What makes the difference in how each grows is usually local: a clump of supportive compost here, a bit more moisture there. Other differences might be a matter of genetic variation: blue‐and‐white flowers here, some pink now and then. That in itself doesn't matter as much as the seed–context interaction, which can be ecologically managed. In classrooms, enriched literacy environments will have quite different effects on students. Nothing works for every student or for any all the time. Students are not homologous to pea plants, of course, but their creative and intellectual efforts exemplify growth. Each varies, and the best is to be cultivated and appreciated.

They Who Manage Life (and Learning) Least Manage Best

Biological determinism is a complaint that I have encountered more than once when sharing the promise of natural idioms, but this belies an ignorance of what biology is about. Biological continuity is ensured through adaptive change (Wilson, 2019). Insofar as we prepare our adolescents to be adaptive in the face of uncertain contingencies, we succeed. Insofar as we try to socially engineer their future to placate our own interests but on the backs of their destinies, our historically demonstrated incapacity to do so ensures failure.

I think we could freshen up the way we express central beliefs borne of experience about adolescent literacy with some selective appropriation. Such an orientation might play strongly with the general public and allow literacy scholars and practitioners to have a louder voice on literacy policy issues; it might also empower our literacy policy advisories while allowing us to lean deeper into the constructed and highly political science of reading. Given the ongoing and impressive advances in the life sciences, their productive and challenging impact on the social sciences and humanities, and their probable if belated impact on education theory, research, and practice, biological and ecological idioms and narratives may be an interesting and useful way to reframe adolescent literacy development.

1 Reading Motivation

3.2 Why Adolescents Do Not Read Books

Interestingly, adolescents referred more often to aspects of intrinsic motivation than extrinsic motivation; adolescents said they were reading to learn, to relax, for absorption and escapism, to develop empathy, for social capital, and/or for excitement. These intrinsic motivators align with the limited qualitative research that exists in different cultural contexts.

Understanding motivators, in addition to barriers or challenges to book reading, is essential for encouraging adolescents to read books more frequently. By conducting a qualitative research study, we prioritized adolescents’ voices to understand their reading motivations during a period of their lives when many adolescents are less motivated or engaged as readers. We aimed to understand why adolescents (ages 15 and 16) choose to read or not read books. We sought to make a unique contribution to research and practice in this area by exploring why adolescents do not read books, in addition to why they do, as previous research typically has focused solely on the latter. Furthermore, our methodological approach (training adolescents as researchers) is novel and has the potential to inform research design in this area.

In self‐determination theory, different forms of motivation are identifiable within individuals based on the extent to which they are self‐determined (i.e., autonomous). Self‐determination theory differentiates between intrinsic reading motivation (i.e., reading for internal reasons; e.g., a curiosity to learn, the desire to become immersed in a story) and extrinsic reading motivation (i.e., reading for external reasons; e.g., to please the teacher/parents, to gain a reward; Conradi et al., 5; Ryan & Deci, 25; Wigfield & Guthrie, 34). Other theories of reading motivation have contributed significantly to our understanding of reading motivation (e.g., expectancy–value theory), but these theories are conceptually more restricted. Self‐determination theory has been described as the most comprehensive theoretical framework of reading motivation that exists at present (Schiefele & Löweke, 26) and allows for an extensive range of intrinsic and extrinsic motivators to be identified.

Principles and practices to encourage adolescents’ reading motivation do not focus solely on promoting motivation within adolescents but also on creating contexts conducive to raising motivation and engagement in reading. For example, classroom practices that support choice, importance, collaboration, and competence have been associated with increased intrinsic reading motivation among adolescents (Guthrie & Klauda, 10). In addition, teachers’ behaviors have been found to predict adolescents’ intrinsic reading motivation (De Naeghel et al., 6). Furthermore, a reading intervention with adolescents focused on principles known to support motivation (e.g., collaboration, voice, relevance/importance, self‐efficacy) alongside cognitive factors (word reading and fluency), acknowledging the importance of both motivational and cognitive factors in adolescents’ reading skill and development (Kim et al., 13). Furthermore, in their synthesis of instructional approaches to support adolescents’ reading, Goldman, Snow, and Vaughn (9) recognized the importance of active, purposeful, and engaged reading, in addition to social supports and opportunities to participate in literacy activities.

Surprisingly, we found that book reading was not always actively encouraged within high schools (or at home) as compared with primary schools. Given that adolescents have reported less book reading than primary school students have (Clark, 3) and due to the known importance of book reading for language and literacy development (e.g., Duncan et al., 7; Torppa et al., 30), high schools should actively encourage and support adolescents to read for pleasure. This may be by providing time within the school week to do so or by introducing initiatives to promote reading for pleasure (e.g., First Minister’s Reading Challenge, summer reading programs). Other qualitative research has also highlighted the importance of teacher support and high‐quality relationships with teachers to support adolescent reading (Heron, 11).

When it came to choosing a book to read, some adolescents (n = 6) noted that they struggled to find one to suit their interests: “I read what’s off the bookshelves at the back of the room. Like, I’ll just pick up a book, and I’ll just maybe start reading it. But I don’t really finish it.” This was unlike digital devices (i.e., their phones), where recommendations based on their interests would pop up, making that reading selection an easier activity, as said by some (n = 3): “It’s sort of just presented to you. You know, like, I don’t go online to read exclusively, but if it’s there, then I may as well read it.” “I read a lot of new articles on my phone. When they pop up, I like reading them.” On a related note, a few students (n = 4) remarked that there are also fewer book options readily available as compared with other text types: “There’s kind of more options. Because if you go on BBC News, there’s loads of options, whereas when you’re at your house, you only have a set amount of books.”

To encourage more adolescents to read books, listening to their perspectives and experiences of book reading is a good start.

On the other hand, many (but not all) popular trade books about reading are written by men who are cognitive scientists with no classroom experience or experience researching in classrooms. Their cognitive science credentials are viewed as evidence of expertise and authority. Meanwhile, many (but not all) popular practitioner books are written by women about direct or personal knowledge from classroom experience. These women are often known by their first names despite PhDs and decades of experience. Still, their theoretical and practical knowledge is trumped by the implicit authority of clinical knowledge from the hard sciences (see VanLandingham, 2014). Therefore, hierarchies of both gender and science are at play in discussions about the science(s) of reading.

Authority and Expertise

Thus, individuals may have to weigh evidence from experience, research on practice in the field, and research from laboratory experiments when considering whether there is good evidence for any given program, practice, or approach.

survey of teachers and teacher educators identified a wide range of understandings of what “balanced literacy” means. Specifically, there were substantial differences in what people thought was being balanced: fiction versus nonfiction, whole‐group versus small‐group, phonics versus whole language, teacher‐directed versus student‐directed. When news stories and trade books that condemn “balanced literacy” are translated into policy conversations that ban balanced literacy materials, the game of telephone from evidence to policy to practice can have extreme, unintended consequences. It would not only be unscientific if balancing fiction/nonfiction or teacher‐/student‐directed instruction were banned when the intention was to ban implicit phonics instruction in favor of more explicit forms, it would be immoral, given the evidence.

A simple archaeology of terms can be used to understand how concepts can evolve both productively and reductively. Productive evolution is distinguished by the ability to communicate a concept and its relationship to other concepts with greater clarity and accuracy than previous terms.

The way evidence is used on the websites of both organizations is also distinct. Resources on the International Dyslexia Association website often include circular self‐references that direct readers to different pages of the site where information is attributed to the organization itself rather than to a study, an individual, or a set of researchers. This presents the organization itself as the authority. The International Literacy Association was more likely to reference specific researchers and to attribute authorship to panels and groups of individuals, thus presenting researchers as authorities. Understanding differences in how research evidence is used can help us understand why two organizations, both of which claim to represent science, so often disagree. However, this does not make it easier for practitioners to decide which messages to trust.

The telephone game from systematic inquiry to practice has several stops along the way where information can be added, changed, or lost (see Figure 1 and, for a simpler view, Figure 2). This process can also flow in both directions (left to right and right to left) when practice itself takes on the form of systematic inquiry. The research–practice or evidence–practice relation is multidimensional and contingent on several interim relations, such that some practices now identified as “unscientific” exist exactly because practitioners were responding to the science.

most relevant science, research, and evidence seems to depend on who you ask

The future science of reading cannot be limited to a single perspective drawn from the findings of a largely white, Western view of neurology, development, and pedagogy. It cannot be limited to discrete levels of language (orthography, phonology, and semantics) without accounting for the reciprocal relations between other dimensions of language‐in‐use: discourse, pragmatics, rhetoric, and the culture it maintains and conveys. It demands both culturally and cognitively responsive instruction, continuous improvement that is done with and for those who it is meant to serve. This depends on a two‐way flow of evidence. where teachers and students take their positions as co‐inquirers: remaking, reimagining, and re‐mediating education for everyone.

few people would disagree with the idea that teaching should be informed by science, decisions should be based on research, and various tools and materials should have clear evidence supporting their use