This tool was developed to assist school leaders in observing specific research-based practices during literacy instruction in grade 4–12 classrooms and students’ independent use or application of those practices. The tool aims to help school leaders conduct brief and frequent walkthroughs throughout the school year.
The Common Core Standards along with grade-level expectations and standards from most states now call for a strong emphasis on reading and writing nonfiction texts — from the beginning. This means that learners of all ages need to become acquainted with the structures and features of informational texts, both as readers and as writers. This guide offers strategies for using those features to enhance understanding and increase efficiency in seeking and recording information and to communicate ideas.
Review the “Install This Research-Based Practice Instead” column below to see how you might disrupt practices to demonstrably boost your students’ achievement and allow more of your students to become strong and eager readers. Each characteristic described in the left-hand column presents an opportunity to redesign, adjust, or even radically alter instruction, and replace it with a new practice in the righthand column that is research-proven.
This booklet (in English and Spanish) features dozens of fun activities parents can use to build the language skills of young children from birth to age 6. It has a reading checklist, typical language accomplishments for different age groups, and resources for children with reading problems or learning disabilities.
This classroom resource guide highlights solutions for connecting home and school in order to improve student learning and success. Whether you’re a teacher, parent, or district administrator, this guide provides you with relevant and valuable tools and resources for how best to strengthen the bonds between schools, families, and communities for student learning and success.
This guide helps city and community leaders and other policymakers examine what is needed and update their family engagement and early learning plans by taking integrated approaches to the use of libraries, schools, multimedia spaces, and through home-based Internet connectivity services.
This handbook discusses the characteristics of dyslexia and provides information on valid assessments, effective teaching approaches, self-advocacy ideas, and additional resources. The handbook contains information that will be useful throughout a child’s life, from elementary school through college.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is the key federal education law that serves students with learning disabilities. Being informed will help you support your child’s learning needs and advocate for his or her success. This guide takes you through the special education process — a process that is the same regardless of your child’s particular difficulties or disabilities. Special emphasis is placed on the category of Specific Learning Disability (which includes dyslexia) — one of the 13 disability categories defined by IDEA. Throughout this guide you will find personal stories that relate the experiences of parents like you, terms to know, and practical tools such as checklists, sample letters, and questions to ask.
Students who read with understanding at an early age gain access to a broader range of texts, knowledge, and educational opportunities, making early reading comprehension instruction particularly critical. This guide recommends five specific steps that teachers, reading coaches, and principals can take to successfully improve reading comprehension for young readers.
This publication provides research-based guidance that reflects best practices for intensifying instruction in reading and mathematics for students with significant learning difficulties in K-12, including students with disabilities.
This practice guide provides you with information on how to support families as they practice foundational reading skills at home. Learning to read begins at home through everyday parent–child interactions, long before children attend school. Parents’ continuing support of literacy development throughout elementary school positively affects their children’s reading ability. This guide is geared towards kindergarten teachers and is a companion to the practice guide, Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade.
These standards provide an evidence-based framework for course content in teacher training programs and instructional reading programs. Written for general educators and specialists, the standards address the needs of all students – students with dyslexia, students struggling with learning to read, and proficient readers. The standards are not a curriculum; they list critical content knowledge, skills, and abilities — the foundation for good reading instruction. They can also be used to help parents select and advocate for effective teaching methods.
The Viewers’ Guide is a companion print guide to our PBS five-part television series, Launching Young Readers. The Viewers’ Guide provides descriptions and approximate lengths for each program segment as well as information on helping children who are struggling with reading.
This guide describes the skills that principals leading schools serving children from age 3 to age 8 — typically Pre-K to grade 3 — must have to ensure the academic, social, emotional and physical well-being and success of all young children. It represents a new vision for school leadership from a child-centered focus by applying the latest research and knowledge on child development and early childhood education to set expectations for effective principal practice.
“Learning to read can, at times, seem almost magical,” Blevins begins this brief on phonics instruction. “But it’s not magical.” In this brief, the author provides a clear description of what phonics is and why it matters. Although phonics can be taught in different ways, research supports instruction that is explicit and systematic. In addition to being explicit and systematic, strong phonics instruction has the following seven key characteristics: readiness skills, scope and sequence, blending, dictation, word awareness, high-frequency words, and reading connected text.
This booklet provides parents with a checklist of key cognitive and physical milestones from 6 months to 4 years, ways to help your child learn and grow, and what to do if you’re concerned about a developmental delay.
This tool kit can help U.S. educators and others who work directly with immigrant students — including asylees and refugees — and their families. It is designed to help elementary and secondary teachers, principals, and other school staff strengthen opportunities for cultural and linguistic integration and education; understand the basics about their legal obligations to newcomers; provide welcoming schools and classrooms for students and their families; provide the academic support to attain English language proficiency and to meet college- and career-readiness standards; and support newcomers’ social-emotional skills.
This guide for parents provides basic information about Response to Intervention (RTI), an example of the three-tier model, progress monitoring, RTI and special education evaluation and eligibility, RTI in action, and questions parents should ask.
This guide was developed by teachers, parents, and education experts in response to the Common Core State Standards that more than 45 states have adopted. Created for grades K-8 and high school English, language arts/literacy and mathematics, the guides provide clear, consistent expectations for what students should be learning at each grade in order to be prepared for college and career.
Parent–teacher conferences are an important component of ongoing home–school communication and family involvement in children’s education. These three tip sheets — for principals, teachers, and parents — can help ensure that parent–teacher conferences achieve their maximum potential by providing guidance that reflects each person’s role and responsibility in promoting productive home–school communication. Designed to be used as a set, the tip sheets combine consistent information with targeted suggestions, so that parents and educators enter into conferences with shared expectations and an increased ability to work together to improve children’s educational outcomes.
This report was developed in conjunction with a national meeting, drawing together students with disabilities and personalized learning experts to discuss how personalized learning systems can be designed to best support the learning of students with disabilities.
This practice guide, developed in conjunction with an expert panel, distills contemporary early childhood and preschool education research into seven easily comprehensible and practical recommendations. The guidance will help to prepare young children to benefit from the learning opportunities they will encounter in school.
Recent research has identified strategies that have the potential to improve reading among students in grades 4–9 with reading difficulties. Research is distilled into practical recommendations educators can use when providing reading interventions. This guide details four evidence-based practices designed to be used by special educators, general education teachers, reading specialists and coaches, administrators, and parents.
Both public and school libraries are community centers at heart, with the same goal: to provide a safe, welcoming environment for all patrons and access to information in a variety of formats. When public and school librarians and library workers engage in collaboration, community members reap the benefits. This toolkit includes context and suggestions for creating partnerships of all sizes.
This booklet summarizes what National Reading Panel researchers have discovered about how to teach children to read successfully. The guide lists the main research findings related to phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension and suggests best instructional practices in each area.
