Religious Metaphor in Media Reporting on the “Science of Reading”

Debates about how to teach reading have continuingly aligned with political agendas in the United States. In this article, we reveal ways in which educational journalism uses metaphor to align the “science of reading” with values and beliefs held by conservative Christian religious groups. Through a critical metaphor analysis of 24 articles from two highly visible media outlets and linking to themes in a literature review on Christian fundamentals in U.S. education, we develop scenarios or mini-narratives that demonstrate how reading education is represented (or misrepresented) through familiar contexts of Church Communities, the Sermon, and Conversion. We contend that media related to these religious values, in a political environment where extremism flourishes, loses focus on the child to retain a particular (conservative) world view. By unpacking these media messages, we hope to question what is being constructed as evidence and how evidence is being used to directly serve children.