Read the passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the best answer to each of the following questions from 6...

Read the passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the best answer to each of the following questions from 6 to 13.

Primary education systems across the West are in a state of profound disagreement over the teaching of reading. For decades, the prevailing doctrine on how to teach children to read was dominated by a "balanced literacy" approach. That consensus is now imploding. A growing body of evidence, drawn from cognitive neuroscience, indicates these popular methods are fundamentally flawed and failing a substantial portion of students. The fallout is forcing a non-optional, systemic overhaul of curricula and challenging long-held beliefs about learning.

The repudiated methods, often grouped under names like "whole language," operated on a mistaken assumption that learning to read is a natural process, similar to learning to speak. Children were actively encouraged to use contextual cues, sentence structure, or accompanying pictures to guess at unfamiliar words. This practice, critics contend, diverted attention from the text itself. It inadvertently trained students to scan and predict rather than to meticulously decode the phonemes on the page, leaving many without the tools to read proficiently.

In response, a movement known as the "Science of Reading" has gained immense political and academic traction. This is not an invention but a compendium of established research. It posits that reading is a complex, acquired skill that must be explicitly taught. The methodology emphasizes systematic phonics—the direct, sequential instruction of sound-letter correspondence. Proponents argue this is the only reliable way to build the neurological pathways required for fluent, automatic word recognition, particularly for students who struggle.

Adopting these new standards is proving neither smooth nor universally celebrated. School districts are spending millions to procure new, phonics-aligned materials. Veteran educators, long trained in balanced literacy, are now required to undergo intensive retraining, with some lamenting the new model as rigid and joyless. They fear its mechanical focus on decoding will stifle a student's genuine desire to read for pleasure. It is a deeply contentious and costly transition, representing a fundamental battle over the very philosophy of how children learn.

(Adapted from Education Next)

Question 6: The word imploding in paragraph 1 is OPPOSITE in meaning to ______.
A. expanding B. shifting C. emerging D. strengthening