Blogs About Reading

Shanahan on Literacy

Timothy Shanahan

Literacy expert Timothy Shanahan shares best practices for teaching reading and writing. Dr. Shanahan is an internationally recognized professor of urban education and reading researcher who has extensive experience with children in inner-city schools and children with special needs. All posts are reprinted with permission from Shanahan on Literacy.

January 4, 2017

I believe in being upfront with my readers, so let me start with a confession: I don’t hate testing. I know it is a horrible thing for a so-called “educator” to admit. It’s sort of a social disease.

November 29, 2016

Letter to Shanahan:  

October 28, 2016

Letter to Shanahan:   I found these troubling quotes in the Report of the National Reading Panel:   "Fluency, the ability to read a text quickly, accurately, and with proper expression..."  

October 11, 2016

Last week I answered a teacher’s question about free reading time during the school day and its relationship to reading motivation (e.g., making kids like reading).

October 5, 2016

Teacher question: You have attacked DEAR time [Drop Everything and Read] because you say it does little to raise reading achievement. But what about having kids read on their own as a way to motivate them to be readers? As a teacher I want my kids to be lifelong readers so I provide 20 minutes of daily independent reading time. What do you think?

September 27, 2016

Usually these blog entries are replies to educators questions. Recently Doug Lemov interviewed me about reading instruction and posted it on his blog. We got into issues like reading strategy instruction, vocabulary assessment, close reading, and guided reading. Many of you know Doug's books, Teach Like a Champion and Reading Revisited.

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"Reading is not optional." —

Walter Dean Myers