Today’s Literacy Headlines

For the first time, the private Stephen Gaynor School is offering a free 15-week course to nine public school educators to help refine their lessons on phonics, which explicitly teaches the relationship between sounds and letters. The small pilot program comes as elementary schools across the city are under a new mandate to emphasize phonics, part of a sweeping plan to overhaul the way New York City public schools teach reading.

It’s going to take aggressive interventions to repair the pandemic’s destructive impact on kids’ schooling. That’s the takeaway of two big new studies that look at how America’s K-12 students are doing. There’s some good news in this new research, to be sure – but there’s still a lot of work to do on both student achievement and absenteeism. Here’s are 7 things to know.

When Michele Maleszyk’s daughter came home from kindergarten last year, Maleszyk noticed she brought home reading material with letter patterns she hadn’t been taught yet. “I thought it was odd she was expected to read books with patterns she didn’t know,” Maleszyk said. “I thought, ‘How can a kid sound out what they don’t know?’ The only way would be by looking at the pictures.”

A new study reported by Sally Shaywitz, MD in the journal Science of Learning, finds that African American students with dyslexia may be overlooked in schools. For the study, children in grades K-2 in two public charter schools in New Orleans, Louisiana were screened using the teacher completed, evidence-based Shaywitz DyslexiaScreen and then tested for dyslexia. Upon being screened, almost half (49.2%) of the children were deemed at-risk for dyslexia. Further testing confirmed that most of those who were screened had dyslexia.

Oregon’s effort to overhaul reading instruction is reaching a critical point as educators await allocations and final guidelines from the state. Last year, Oregon launched its new vision for how to teach the state’s youngest learners to read and write. The Early Literacy Success Initiative reoriented efforts around research-backed approaches to reading. The initiative has four main funding buckets: one to support K-12 school districts, a birth-through-five literacy fund, grants for community-based groups and funds for tribal organizations.

Picture this: kindergarten students are excitedly discussing the life cycle of a tree. In a whole-class discussion, paired “turn and talk” chats with a partner, and responses to sentence stems, they describe bare limbs, falling leaves, and a tree’s dormant winter season. They compare evergreens and deciduous trees, using vocabulary that reappears in related texts. In this joyful learning community, students at all reading levels practice grade-level oral and literacy skills, grow vocabulary, and gain access to a common base of information. This is what reading lessons look like today in the Roswell Independent School District, where I oversee elementary education. It’s a major difference from the not-so-distant past.

In what has been called one of the largest education-related settlements in U.S. history, California has agreed to dedicate at least $2 billion to help students catch up from COVID-19-related learning loss. The agreement hinges on the verification of available funds, as well as legislation that supports targeted interventions.

Years of experience suggested that students learn best when assigned hands-on laboratory activities, weekly problem sets, in-class opportunities to discuss material with fellow students, and frequent short quizzes. This active approach seemed far superior to the more traditional—and more passive—approach of sage-on-a-stage lectures. Do teach actively. And spread the word that new scientific evidence affirms the old adage: Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember, involve me and I learn.

Dozens of cities and states across America are overhauling the way their schools teach reading — attempting to close gaps exacerbated by the pandemic. The ability to understand language and stories develops naturally in kids, just like walking and talking, but reading does not, says Tiffany Hogan, director of the the Speech and Language Literacy Lab at MGH Institute in Boston. So the balanced literacy approach, which relies on kids’ intuition to pick up reading, only works for some students. Studies have shown that phonics-based instruction, however, is effective at raising test scores across the board.

We asked teachers to recommend their top book picks for students who say they “just aren’t that into reading.” Before recommending a book, “I would have to talk with the child first to get an understanding of who they are and what they like,” comments educator Nikilia Lorraine Reid. Sometimes audiobooks and graphic novels can also help bridge the gap for kids who aren’t up for full-length books.

As states launch a raft of new literacy laws, the charter network is rolling out more testing and training in schools nationwide. The largest charter management organization in the U.S., enrolling roughly 120,000 students across nearly 300 campuses, KIPP is completing a gradual overhaul of its literacy instruction, which will take effect for all of its schools by 2025. According to research from Saint Louis University’s Policy Research in Missouri Education Center, KIPP Victory Academy (Wisdom’s sister school) posted the best scores for reading growth of any elementary school on Missouri’s 2021 state standardized testing. 

In Ten Little Rabbits, a new posthumous picture book by Maurice Sendak, Mino the Magician waves his wand and, poof, a rabbit appears. Another wave and out springs a second and then a third. By the forth rabbit, Mino yawns. By the sixth, he’s annoyed. Ninth, he’s exasperated, as the rabbits crawl all over him. So back they go, one rabbit at a time, giving readers the chance to count up and back again by the time Mino is done. Once again, Sendak’s knack for capturing just about every kind of emotion is on full display, 12 years after his death, in this book being brought to the public for the first time.

Tools and strategies to motivate reluctant readers, facilitate deeper comprehension, and level the playing field among students of differing abilities. We collected a handful of the best classroom strategies to boost literacy skills, differentiate your instruction, and promote a love of the printed word.   

Dual immersion programs allow English language learners to continue their journey in their native language—Spanish, at our school. The more proficient students are in their primary language, the faster they are able to transfer those skills to a second language. Our English speakers have the opportunity to learn a new language. In the 2022–2023 school year, 95% of kindergarten, 72% of first-grade, and 68% of second-grade students were reading at or above grade level. Here’s how we did it.

For decades, the author of “In the Night Kitchen” and “The Nutshell Library” fortified himself with art and words. Sendak died almost 12 years ago, but his studio is exactly as he left it. There are his pencil cups and watercolor sets; there’s his final manuscript, for a book called “No Noses.” And there, glowing like a ripe tomato, is his red cardigan, draped over the back of an empty chair. 

Factors driving COVID-19 relief spending include mental health needs, lagging test scores and the desire for financial stability, an Association of School Business Officials International (ASBO) survey finds. Regarding spending for student academic recovery needs, ASBO survey respondents said the most popular strategy focused on expanding summer learning and enrichment programs. 

About a third of students are on track to miss at least 10% of school days this year. Why are students missing school, and how can we bring them back? This On Point discussion features Scott Hale, principal of Johnstown High School, Hedy Chang, executive director of Attendance Work, Todd Rogers, professor of public policy at Harvard Kennedy School of Government and co-founder of Everyday Labs, and Aaris Johnson, director of home visits and re-engagement at Concentric Educational Solutions.

Better late than never, New York state has stirred itself to change the way reading is taught in its 800-plus local school districts. Last month, Governor Kathy Hochul announced a plan to spend (an admittedly paltry) $10 million to train 20,000 teachers in the “science of reading,” including a “microcredentialing” program via the state’s public universities. Hochul’s proposed “Back to Basics” initiative will, she insists, return the state’s classrooms to scientifically proven techniques. The Reading League, a national educator-led advocacy organization that happens to be based in upstate New York, is “cautiously optimistic” about the plan and is offering Hochul some good advice in rolling out the initiative. For starters, they suggest dropping the “Back to Basics” branding, which might be good politics, but is instructionally tone-deaf.

February is Black History Month, so why not start with these edifying, entertaining audiobooks by Black writers about Black experiences starring Black characters? 

Students from historically marginalized backgrounds are more likely than their advantaged peers to be treated as passive users of technology. While they are completing digital worksheets, their peers in better-resourced schools are coding, collaborating, and designing and building tech tools. The newly released National Education Technology Plan from the U.S. Department of Education aims to highlight that disparity and many other inequities in the use and design of ed tech, as well as access to it. The report also offers ways that those digital divides can be mitigated. 

Overall in math, a subject where learning loss has been greatest, students have made up about a third of what they lost. In reading, they have made up a quarter, according to the new analysis of standardized test score data led by researchers at Stanford and Harvard. The findings suggest that the United States has averted a dire outcome — stagnating at pandemic lows — but that many students are not on pace to catch up before the expiration of a $122 billion federal aid package in September. Still, the gap between students from rich and poor communities — already huge before the pandemic — has widened.

Many teachers excel at stocking their shelves with books featuring characters of diverse abilities, races and socioeconomic statuses. However, representation of size diversity, particularly with regard to fat main characters, is often overlooked. The absence of differently sized characters has far-reaching implications for students because students’ engagement and motivation in reading are influenced by the presence of relatable protagonists. Rudine Sims Bishop’s “windows, mirrors and sliding glass doors” framework underscores the roles books play for learning about others, reflecting aspects of oneself, and facilitating exploration.

Sullivan Elementary School is the smallest public school in the Hillsborough County school district, with 76 students and one teacher per grade level. It operates in partnership Metropolitan Ministries, a local nonprofit that supports families at risk of homelessness in Tampa Bay. Principal McMeen says many of the students come from the homeless shelter next door and are dealing with serious stressors outside of school. For the past few years, the school has been experimenting with a new tool to help kids deal with their stress: a daily mindfulness program called Inner Explorer. An app created for schools, it involves daily lessons in observing sensations and emotions. It’s part of a new approach to delivering mindfulness, an increasingly popular, evidence-based mental health practice, in more accessible ways to vulnerable populations.

More than 7.5 million American students have disabilities that qualify them for individual education plans. But teachers trained in this critical area are in short supply. Special education teachers and administrators share how the shortage is affecting them, and John Yang speaks with Kimber Wilkerson, professor of special education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, to learn more.

Despite increased attention to the topic, chronic absenteeism is not exactly new — until recently, it was considered a “hidden educational crisis.” What’s new about chronic absenteeism is that it now affects students from a variety of demographic backgrounds, from those in the suburbs and rural areas to those in cities. The evidence has long been clear that absences contribute to lower achievement and worsen long-term economic outcomes for individual students and the country. Poor attendance influences whether a child can read proficiently by the end of third grade. By sixth grade, chronic absenteeism signals that a student might drop out of high school.

Parents are increasingly considering new schooling options for their kids, according to a survey released this month. After exploring available choices, a smaller number of families ultimately selected new schools but a majority reported wanting more information about school choice. Both local and out-of-district traditional public schools remained popular among school-searching families, followed by charter schools, private and religious schools and homeschooling.

Author–illustrator Vashti Harrison happened to be in Miami to celebrate her father’s 89th birthday when—at 9:30 p.m., while sorting laundry—she received the news of her Caldecott win. “It’s a little bit of a jump scare when you realize there’s a whole room full of people calling to say congratulations to you,” Harrison said. The Caldecott news wasn’t her first artistically affirming call of the day: “I had received a call from the Coretta Scott King award committee around 1 in the afternoon,” with the happy information that Big had received both the King Author Honor and the King Illustrator Honor.

Here are five instructional approaches educators can incorporate into their instruction to nurture deeper thinking. Some of these approaches, such as reason with evidence, will seem similar to other “contentless” programs professing to teach critical thinking skills. But others, such as say it in your own words or look for structure, are targeted at ensuring learners soundly understand content so that they can engage in complex thinking. You will likely notice that every single one of these approaches requires students to talk — to themselves, to a partner, or to the whole class. Dialogue, specifically in the context of teacher-led discussions, is essential for students to analyze, evaluate, and judge (i.e., do critical thinking). 

The most populous state in the nation is revamping how it credentials teachers to teach reading, replacing a test that has served as a controversial gatekeeper for teacher-candidates for more than 25 years. This shift in California comes as dozens of states are attempting to align their teacher-preparation programs to the research behind how kids learn to read. The debate around this decision in the Golden State is a microcosm of the issues arising from this process across the country.

I’ll be honest. I can’t remember an ALA YMA announcement day that pleased me half as much as the one we had on Monday, January 22, 2024. With very few exceptions I pretty much adored every single book listed (that I knew about). It was humbling to see a couple titles that I didn’t even read in 2024 (my apologies to The Truth About Dragons which currently has LOADS of holds in my library). There were books that won that I didn’t even think had a chance but was delighted to see, and books that didn’t get bupkiss (more on those at the end of this post).

Concerns have been raised that methodologies based on the Science of Reading may negatively impact English Learners (ELs). On February 8, New America and SEAL will co-host a webinar that will unpack the relationship between the Science of Reading and ELs, including the misconceptions about this much debated topic, best practices for EL-identified students, and implications for dual language programs. The first panel of experts will discuss the policy implications of the Science of Reading for ELs, and the second panel will feature state, district and instructional leaders at the forefront of Science of Reading implementation.

After more than a decade of struggles, nonprofits are leading the charge to help more Black students in St. Louis read at grade level. The St. Louis NAACP recently launched the “Right to Read” campaign, which focuses on improving proficiency and educational equity for students of color. Its mission: By 2030, all children in the city and county of St. Louis will receive the materials and support they need to help get them reading well by third grade.

At the beginning of her now nearly 30-year career, Leslie M. Gauna was given a warning: Bilingual education wouldn’t be a viable career option in the long term. Yet nowadays the need for Spanish-speaking teachers in the United States is as strong as ever, with districts around the country struggling to hire them fast enough. The dearth of bilingual teachers is especially counterintuitive in Texas, where Gauna is a professor and where she conducted a qualitative research study on what she calls the “The Leaking Spanish Bilingual Education Teacher Pipeline.”

Dave Eggers has won the 2024 John Newbery Medal for the most outstanding contribution to children’s literature, for his novel The Eyes and the Impossible (McSweeney’s/Knopf), illustrated by Shawn Harris, edited by Taylor Norman and Melanie Nolan. Vashti Harrison has won the 2024 Randolph Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished picture book for children, for Big (Little, Brown), edited by Farrin Jacobs. And The Collectors: Stories, compiled by A.S. King (Dutton), edited by Andrew Karre, has won the 2024 Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in literature written for young adults. The Youth Media Awards were announced Monday morning, January 22, during the American Library Association’s LibLearnXconference in Baltimore.

Newcomer ELLs, especially students with interrupted formal education (SIFEs), typically need one-on-one attention throughout their school day. Without such attention, general educators need to use alternate methods to address the needs of this special demographic. Even without a dedicated specialist, there are steps that teachers can take to support the success of this growing group of students in school. Here are some ideas. 

Educators have long debated the best way to teach, especially the subjects of science and math. One side favors direct instruction, where teachers tell students what they need to know or students read it from textbooks. Some call it explicit or traditional instruction. The other side favors inquiry, where students conduct experiments and figure out the answers themselves like a scientist would. It’s also known as exploration, discovery learning or simply “scientific practices.”

Small, regular interactions with a reading tutor — about 5 to 7 minutes — are making a big impact on young students’ reading skills, new Stanford University research shows. First graders in Florida’s Broward County schools who participated in the program, called Chapter One, saw more substantial gains in reading fluency than those who didn’t receive the support, according to the study. They were also 9 percentage points less likely to be considered at risk on a district literacy test. The model — less costly than other programs — combines one-on-one instruction with computer-based activities.

Unlike other ELA curricula, which often give teachers choices of books or allow students to pick their own, knowledge-building programs feature tightly constructed sequences of text that are all thematically related. And while students still practice comprehension strategies—such as summarizing or inferring—the curriculum prioritizes deeply understanding the content, rather than isolated skill exercises. These programs stem from the idea, backed by research, that having a broad array of background knowledge makes individuals better readers. General world knowledge is correlated with reading-comprehension ability.

Learning is complex. It depends on a myriad of cognitive skills, emotions, and behaviors alongside prior knowledge. Fortunately, the field of cognitive science has accumulated a rich body of evidence of how we learn (science of learning) and how to teach to promote learning (science of teaching). These research-backed strategies have the capacity to help students learn and retain more information.

A soon-to-be published study with children aged 10-12 from neuroscientists at Columbia University’s Teachers College indicates that for “deeper reading” there is a clear advantage to reading a text on paper, rather than on a screen, where “shallow reading was observed”. “Reading both expository and complex texts from paper seems to be consistently associated with deeper comprehension and learning” across the full range of social scientific literature. What does it mean when schools are going digital?

Armed with a crash course of expert training in the science of reading, phonics, and other early literacy techniques, reading captains help prepare parents and guardians to reinforce the lessons kids are learning in the classroom. They fan out into neighborhoods with one goal: Make sure the children on your block have the support they need to read on grade level. Because right now, many of those children cannot. They are also plugged into a volunteer network that spans the city.

A whole book about a bunch of kids washing rugs with their grandmother? Author Astrid Kamalyan says she’d understand if you heard that pitch and thought, “Huh?” But — of course — it is so much more than that. “It’s actually a book about Armenian joy and the beauty of Armenian family,” says Kamalyan. “It has so much of what made our childhoods so happy.” In Bábo: A Tale of Armenian Rug-Washing Day, a little girl named Tato steals some cherry plums before grabbing a brush. She joins friends and siblings outside, where they soak, soap, and wash the rugs.

Too many states aren’t giving teachers the skills to teach reading effectively, according to an analysis by the National Center on Teacher Quality. The report, released by the nonprofit National Center on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), identifies five key areas where education authorities can arm teachers with better skills to teach the fundamentals of literacy — from establishing strict training and licensure standards for trainees to funding meaningful professional development to classroom veterans. While a handful of states were singled out for praise, others were criticized for inaction or half-measures. 

Finland became in short order the most widely celebrated and imitated education system in the world. Admiration eventually grew into a complete fever. Finland was Michael Jackson, educationally-speaking. Everybody wanted to moonwalk. There were breathless superfans screaming at the limousine. Then, Finland’s performance tanked. It has declined more than the performance of any other country in the assessment program as of the 2022 test administration, whose outcomes were reported just a few months ago. It’s a whale of a story. What happened?

Massachusetts’s wealthiest school districts are also, strangely, the most likely to stick with a reading curriculum the state frowns on, one which leaves many students struggling with an essential life skill.

It’s been 40 years since Martin Luther King’s Birthday became a national holiday, and the question of how to celebrate it was probably best answered by the late John Lewis. The Georgia representative called it “a day on, not a day off,” “a day of action, a day of love, to give of ourselves to others and begin anew the building of the beloved community.” A new picture book about Lewis and two about Coretta Scott King make for illuminating reading on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s holiday and throughout the year.

Chronic absenteeism, academic recovery, artificial intelligence and waning COVID relief funds are among the slate of challenges school leaders face.

Landmark studies of preschool programs in the 1960s and 70s showed that they could make a big difference for children from low-income families. But more recent experimental studies of preschool don’t show as strongly positive results for students’ academic and social outcomes. Why? That’s the question that Anamarie Whitaker, an assistant professor in human development and family sciences at the University of Delaware, set out to investigate in a new working paper. 

A new study by the University of Cambridge, has found that sing-song speech is vital in helping babies to learn a language and that babies do not begin to process phonetic information (the smallest sound units of speech) until they are around 7 months old. The study concluded that the rise and fall of tone—as in a nursery rhyme—is crucial to an infant’s processing of information and language.

Cursive is making a comeback amid concerns that learning to use a keyboard had superseded handwriting skills that are important for intellectual development — and also that a new generation of students could not write or read the flowing words of historical documents, old letters and family recipes.

Early, universal screening for reading disabilities is fast gaining traction among states, with 46 states now requiring some kind of dyslexia assessment in the early grades. Emerging research suggests new ways educators should think about how to identify dyslexia, particularly among vulnerable populations.

What does “differentiating instruction” mean to you, and what does it actually look like in the classroom? Two educators and a literacy professor share their thoughts.

An effort to overhaul how children learn to read, known as the science of reading movement, is sweeping the country. Here’s where it stands.

Since the COVID pandemic, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of young children who are slow to develop language skills, with pediatric speech delays more than doubling for children aged 12 and younger. PBS Wisconsin’s Zac Schultz reports on what’s behind the delays and whether schools have the resources to help teachers, students and caregivers.

Children are eager listeners—of audiobooks, according to a new Library Journal / School Library Journal survey. Almost all public libraries now carry audiobooks for teens and children, the survey of nearly 500 public librarians found. “Kids in our community listen to audiobooks as they are learning to read and then continue to listen as they grow older, even if they are able to read the story,” according to Sammy Nieman, youth services librarian at Sun Prairie (WI) Public Library.

The federal government recently released an updated policy statement on the inclusion of children with disabilities in early childhood programs. The statement outlines the many academic benefits of inclusion for young children with disabilities. Notably, it also emphasizes the positive impact inclusion has on all children in the classroom. Children with and without disabilities learning together have the opportunity to strengthen their social emotional skills, build new friendships, learn about human diversity, and participate in creating a sense of belonging.

“Our results showed that bilinguals seem to be more efficient at ignoring information that’s irrelevant, rather than suppressing—or inhibiting information,” deMeurisse said. “One explanation for this is that bilinguals are constantly switching between two languages and need to shift their attention away from the language not in use.” An example of this could be an English- and Spanish-speaking person having a conversation in Spanish—both languages are active yet English is cognitively put on hold but ready to be deployed as needed.

We know that many children are failing to learn to read in our nation’s classrooms. So it’s tempting to hope that tutoring by artificial intelligence could provide a solution. But how close are we to this for our earliest readers? And if AI isn’t yet the solution, are we making full use of digital tools that can help? We decided to find out about AI. 

Almost 40% of U.S. public schools say they’re offering high-dosage tutoring and more than one out of 10 students (11%) are receiving it this 2023-24 school year. Here are four lessons: (1) timning matters, (2) There’s a hiring dilemma, (3) we need more research on the effectiveness of video tutoring, and (4) humans and machines could take turns. 

For my family, reading Scarry together was itself like a car trip — the rare sort where no one gets cranky and the world, as seen from the back seat, is fresh and startling.