Shanahon on Literacy:

1. No, the fact that you do not use a textbook to teach reading does not make you a good teacher.

The idea that good teachers don’t follow a program and weak ones do has been around since well before I became a teacher. It is absolutely silly. The good teachers are the ones who manage to teach kids a lot and the poor ones accomplish less. That has nothing to do with whether a program is followed or not.

mrr