{
  "id": 9365856,
  "title": "The Woman Winning the Reading Wars",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/23/the-woman-winning-the-reading-wars",
  "topic": "culture",
  "section": "Culture",
  "published": "2026-09-23T15:49:41.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Time",
    "slug": "time",
    "url": "https://time.com/article/2026/09/23/louisa-moats-letrs-training-reading-interview/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Louisa Moats, an 81-year-old woman, has become a prominent figure in the reading wars due to a teacher-training program she developed. This program, Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS), emphasizes the importance of teaching reading through a structured approach that focuses on phonics, morphology, and orthography. Moats has been approached by teachers who have thanked her for providing a sense of purpose and competence in their profession. She acknowledges the skepticism surrounding her methods, but remains committed to the cause. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the science of reading, particularly after a report in 2024 showed that about 40% of American children were not proficient in basic reading-comprehension skills by the fourth grade. In response to this crisis, states have passed laws mandating the use of research-based reading instruction techniques. Moats' program is one of the preferred ways for schools to meet these requirements, though it is expensive and not always effective in improving teaching methods. Despite this, Moats has seen a significant increase in the number of teachers enrolled in her course, with 700,000 teachers now having completed it by 2025.",
  "summary": "Louisa Moats' decades-old training program is now the hot new thing",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}