When Science Becomes Law: Proficiency, Deficiency, and the Regulation of Literacy

ABSTRACT The Science of Reading (SOR) has emerged as a dominant reference point in contemporary literacy research and policy, frequently invoked as a convergent and authoritative body of evidence guiding instructional reform. This article examines how SOR functions as both research and a legitimizing discourse within contemporary policy infrastructures. Drawing on influential SOR scholarship and critical analyzes of its policy uptake, this narrative‐critical review identifies recurring patterns in how reading development and proficiency are defined, operationalized, and governed. To illustrate how SOR's authority is codified within legislative language, the article includes a focused case analysis of Utah's 2026 early literacy legislation (SB0241), which embeds SOR within statutory mandates governing assessment, intervention, and grade progression. Through required benchmark assessments, standardized proficiency thresholds, and retention provisions tied to third‐grade reading performance, SB0241 establishes a statewide definition of reading success anchored in measurable benchmarks. As proficiency consolidates as literacy's organizing endpoint, divergence from standardized trajectories is rendered legible as teacher or student deficit, while structural, racialized, and embodied conditions shaping reading processes are displaced from analytic view. Rather than adjudicating whether SOR “works,” this article interrogates how its codification within policy systems narrows public understandings of literacy, responsibility, and educational equity.