Editing Whole language (section)

====One district's experience: Bethlehem PA====
In 2015, Jack Silva, the chief academic officer for Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, discovered that a lot of students in his district were struggling with reading. In 2015, only 56 percent of third-graders were scoring proficient on the state reading test. Silva conducted a survey of reading instruction methods that were being used. The predominant approach, he learned, involved the use of methods based upon a whole-language philosophy. In response, the Bethlehem district invested approximately $3 million on training, materials, and support to help its early elementary teachers and principals learn the science of how reading works and how children should be taught, focusing on phonics instruction. At the end of the 2018 school year, after the phonics-based re-training, 84 percent of kindergartners met or exceeded the benchmark score.<ref name="NPR">{{cite news |last1=Hanford |first1=Emily |title=Why Millions Of Kids Can't Read, And What Better Teaching Can Do About It |url=https://www.npr.org/2019/01/02/677722959/why-millions-of-kids-cant-read-and-what-better-teaching-can-do-about-it |newspaper=NPR.org |publisher=NPR |access-date=29 January 2019}}</ref>