Today’s Literacy Headlines

Students who don’t acquire foundational reading skills early often face steep learning challenges as they progress through school. Effective interventions targeted at older students include screening to identify areas of struggle, a curriculum that aligns with the science of reading and includes texts that are both engaging and grade-appropriate, foundational reading instruction, and ongoing professional development.

In a groundbreaking study that sheds light on the educational techniques applied to students with Autism, researchers Wang and Poon have evaluated the effectiveness of a multiple strategies approach designed to enhance social inferential reading comprehension among elementary students diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The researchers implemented a tailored educational program focusing on various strategies that combined direct instruction, interactive tasks, and socio-emotional learning activities. This multi-layered approach was hypothesized to not only enhance reading comprehension but also foster social understanding—a vital component of effective learning and communication for these students.

Finding family engagement strategies that feel authentic and manageable can help elementary teachers establish and maintain close relationships with parents. Strategies can include positive phone calls home, photos of students learning, Friday communication, parent surveys, and personal notes. 

The risks of using generative artificial intelligence to educate children and teens currently overshadow the benefits, according to a new study by the Brookings Institution’s Center for Universal Education. The sweeping study includes focus groups and interviews with K-12 students, parents, educators and tech experts in 50 countries, as well as a literature review of hundreds of research articles. It found that using AI in education can “undermine children’s foundational development” and that “the damages it has already caused are daunting,” though “fixable.” Here are some of the pros and cons that the report lays out, along with a sampling of the study’s recommendations for teachers, parents, school leaders and government officials: Pro: AI can help students learn to read and write; Con: AI poses a grave threat to students’ cognitive development.

Elementary school librarian Tom Bober has been thinking about America’s 250th birthday for a few years. He wondered what the semiquincentennial will mean to his students beyond fireworks and flags. And how can he and his library at Captain Elementary in St. Louis, MO, make it more than the summer celebrations? How can he share the story of the United States? The answer: Picture books and primary sources. “My kids connect with stories, and we have great authors [whose] writing can help shape their understanding of what these 250 years have been beyond the patriotic music and the flags,” says Bober

This week’s Teacher Feature takes us to Candler County, inside Metter Elementary, where Ulmer teaches third-grade reading. The moment you step through her door, you can tell you’re not in an ordinary classroom. The walls, the details, the atmosphere—everything feels like Hogwarts. And it’s not subtle. “She really likes Harry Potter,” the student who nominated Ulmer, Hayzel Johnson says with a laugh. Ulmer doesn’t deny it. She embraces it—right down to the class pet: a bearded dragon named Norbert. But the theme isn’t there just for decoration. For Ulmer, Harry Potter is personal. It’s the story that made her a reader, and she wants her students to know that reading can change for them, too.

Use ‘semantic gradients’ to turn vocabulary study into a shared thinking activity that explores the subtle differences between related words. When Joshua LaFleur prepares his second and third graders to read a science text about the Voyager 2 probe, he doesn’t pre-teach key vocabulary words with a list. Instead, LaFleur, a doctoral candidate at Western University, gets students into small groups and has them investigate their prior knowledge about deep space travel by arranging key words along a continuum on a whiteboard—from lonely to isolated—prompting students to debate and tease out the “semantic gradients,” or subtle differences in meaning, between the terms.  

Pioneered by Edward Steichen, Lewis W. Hine and Tana Hoban, photographically illustrated “concept” books have never had a more potentially receptive audience. In recent decades, the ranks of photographers making occasional forays or full-time careers as picture book artists have swelled, while the uses to which they apply the medium have become more varied. For “How Are You Peeling? Foods With Moods,” a concept book about human emotions, Saxton Freymann photographed oranges, apples, tomatoes, onions and peppers, all carved like mini jack-o’-lanterns with uncannily lifelike expressions. Other photographers — Susan Kuklin, Ken Robbins, Shelley Rotner and George Ancona, to name a few — have embraced the picture book as an outlet for the kind of humanistic photo essay once routinely showcased in magazines like Look and Life. Still others employ digital tools such as Photoshop or, as William Wegman did for his deadpan mash-ups of classic tales featuring an all-Weimaraner cast, conjure photo-theater magic via the old-fashioned method of staging scenes for the camera — to produce images that, alluringly, manage to look real and unreal in equal measure.

Mississippi’s progress has made it the envy of the education world, inspiring countless think pieces and recurring debates about whether the “Mississippi miracle” could be real. It did not do so by relying on some of the most common proposals held up as solutions in education, like reducing class sizes, or dramatically boosting per-student funding. Rather, the state pushed through a vast list of other changes from the top down, including changing the way reading is taught, in an approach known as the science of reading, but also embracing contentious school accountability policies other states have backed away from. Mississippi also measures how much students progress toward proficiency. Schools get credit if students show improvement — and double credit for the improvement of students in the bottom 25 percent. The state also takes an unusually strong role in telling schools what to do.

There is perhaps nothing more important right now than knowing how to separate fact from falsehood, to spot and stop misinformation and manipulation. Adults struggle with these media and news literacy skills and kids must be taught, a job that is often the responsibility of library media specialists. Teaching news and media literacy was once about helping students confirm facts. With the introduction and proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI), the skills are as much about determining what is real as what is true. And educators must not only manage the breadth of sources of information and the advancements of technology but also pierce a growing distrust.

Adopting a truly knowledge-building elementary curriculum—one that is rich in content, including topics in social studies and science—is crucial for improving students’ education outcomes. But no matter how well-constructed a curriculum is, it’s possible for districts and schools to implement it in a way that doesn’t work well. And that happens surprisingly often. A new study from SRI analyzed reading instruction in four large districts that had been using effective knowledge-building curricula for several years, long enough to figure out how to implement a curriculum well. And yet the researchers found that most reading comprehension instruction—about two-thirds of the lessons observed—supported “surface-level” rather than “robust” understanding.

Philadelphia will open two new schools as part of the new North Philadelphia Promise Zone, which is meant to boost student achievement and provide additional support to families in one of the city’s poorest areas, Superintendent Tony Watlington said. The program will be modeled on the Harlem Children’s Zone, a high-profile education program launched in New York City in the 1990s. The Harlem Children’s Zone organization provides charter schools and social services to families in one of New York City’s poorest neighborhoods. Researchers found it helped boost student achievement and shrunk the gap between Black and white children’ achievement. However, some experts have warned that efforts to replicate the program elsewhere have had mixed results.

If 2025 featured a mix of highs and lows in early care and education, 2026 is poised to bring a series of deeper challenges to the field, as states prepare to make difficult budget decisions in anticipation of the looming federal funding cuts. From immigration enforcement to universal child care, policy experts preview what to expect in early care and education in the year ahead.

“I’m writing for the kid I used to be,” says Dav Pilkey, who defied expectations to create three blockbuster graphic-novel series. Pilkey’s line drawings, purposeful misspellings and unplugged humor are what made him a mainstay on the best-seller list. He launched his first graphic novel series in 1997 with “The Adventures of Captain Underpants,” which has now been translated into 37 languages. Dog Man, which started in 2016, has been translated into 50 languages. It spawned a spinoff, “Cat Kid Comic Club” (28 languages), and a movie, as did Captain Underpants. Dog Man and Cat Kid both have their own musicals. “Dav introduced a new genre 20 years before the explosion of graphic novels,” said Deb Pettid, co-founder of The Rabbit Hole, a museum of children’s literature in North Kansas City, Mo., which features a Pilkey-inspired Turbo Toilet 2000 in its main restroom. “For a lot of kids, Dav’s books might be the first ones they read cover to cover, and that’s a huge accomplishment.”

At least eight states are trying to crack down on attempts to remove books in school libraries, passing legislation that gives librarians more leeway in selecting materials, sets up formal processes for responding to challenges, and bars schools from pulling books from the shelves for ideological reasons. Dubbed “freedom to read” laws by supporters, this legislation has emerged over the last two years, a response to the growing number of challenges to books for content related to race and LGBTQ+ issues in the post-pandemic period.

When students return to school in January, their writing stamina often needs a boost. Luckily, there are many great picture books that can help students ease back into writing, rebuild motivation, and stay engaged as the new semester begins.

Based on my work as an education administrator and as an adjunct professor teaching Universal Design for Learning (UDL), I have seen that the most effectively inclusive schools share a common thread: Leaders create the conditions for special educators and related service providers to function as integral members of instructional teams. The following strategies offer a practical road map for guiding this shift.

They hope the weekly, 15-minute episodes of StoryKind will spark interest and curiosity in reading and writing and help wean kids off the steady diet of short-form video. Listeners can also follow along at Instagram @storykindpod! Starting with the first episode that drops on January 19, DiCamillo and Yang will answer questions from readers, share writing tips, discuss the work of teachers and librarians, and try to reveal the power of storytelling.

Today’s post kicks off a series on scaffolding instruction for students. This first column in the series focuses on scaffolds for English learners. Scaffolds are essential, though temporary, supports that allow multilingual learners to fully engage in the learning process and demonstrate their knowledge alongside their English-speaking peers. There are many scaffolding strategies used to support multilingual learners, but the ones I find most effective are grounded in both my teaching and personal experiences. The scaffolds that made the greatest impact on me and my students have been visual supports.It is truly remarkable how much a simple image can improve comprehension when attached to a word or phrase in a new language. A visual can instantly clarify meaning and significantly boost understanding of any text or task. Another highly effective scaffold for supporting input is the use of simplified texts.

The year 2025 marks the 75th anniversary of the publication of one of the most successful children’s books of all time: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis, the first volume in his seven-book series, the Chronicles of Narnia. It has been translated into over forty languages, has been adapted numerous times for cinema, stage, television, and radio, and every year still ranks as a global bestselling title in the fantasy genre.
“It all began with a picture.” That is how Lewis describes the origin of this classic tale. The whole imaginative process “began with a picture of a faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood.” This picture had been in his mind’s eye since he was about sixteen years old. One day, when he was about fifty, he said to himself, “Let’s try to make a story about it”

Reading picture books is like eating dessert for every meal. From rowdy rhymes to outrageous plots to all-absorbing illustrations, they are sweet and satisfying. The authors of my favorite children’s books published this year succeed, I’d argue, because they genuinely tap into a childlike perspective. Mike Rampton poses questions that seemingly only kids could come up with in There Are No Silly Questions. X. Fang captures the complex emotions that swirl inside tiny bodies in Broken, and Gideon Sterer demonstrates how imaginary friends can lead to real ones in If You Make a Call on a Banana Phone. Treat yourself, and the kids in your lives, to some dessert.

Interested in teaching the younger generation about those things called “books”? Have little (or not-so-little) ones who are ready to broaden their reading horizons? Below you can find tried-and-true picture books, middle-grade reads, and YA novels recommended by NPR staff and critics. These are just a fraction of the kid selections from our 2025 Books We Love guide; hop over there to browse the full list!

When the doors to Mansfield Elementary School in northeastern Connecticut officially opened to students in the 2023-24 school year, Principal Kate McCoy had a lot to be excited about. She looked forward to building a new school community for the estimated 550 students coming together from three former area schools that had closed due to aging infrastructures and declining enrollment. And she appreciated how the building’s features—abundant natural light, a patio for outdoor learning, a dedicated LEGO room, and the neighboring Mansfield Hollow State Park, whose 250-plus acres allow for easy access to class hikes and other outdoor activities—would support her primary goal as an elementary school leader: to create a culture of joy for students.

With Oklahoma public schools ranked 50th in the nation and third-grade reading proficiency near last, the Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce took notice, launching the “Oklahoma Competes” plan. The campaign is modeled on what has been called the “Mississippi Miracle.” Using a combination of early intervention, science-based reading instruction and literacy coaches, among other things, Mississippi students’ fourth-grade reading scores on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), often called The Nation’s Report Card, moved from near bottom in 2013 to near the top in the nation. Was it a miracle, and what can Oklahoma learn from Mississippi’s successes?

The massive number of apps and sites clamoring for teachers’ collective attention can be exhausting. So this guide is intended to help you gauge what’s actually worth your time. Each of these top 10 tools is valuable whether you’re working with little kids, grad students, or learners in between. These services are all free to try, with paid upgrades available. I teach college and grad students, have two elementary school kids of my own and have worked with teachers at all levels for more than two decades. So you’ll find here tools designed to enhance teaching at all levels. 

Proven methods for teaching the readers who struggle most have been known for decades. Why do we often fail to use them? Many American schools don’t use scientifically supported instructional methods, though, and, partly because they don’t, dyslexia can be hard to distinguish from what one elementary-school principal described to me as “dystaughtia.” If reading were taught better, almost all students would benefit, and students with neurological differences would be easier to identify and treat before their difficulties with reading derailed their lives. “There’s a window of opportunity to intervene,” Mark Seidenberg, a cognitive neuroscientist, told me. “You don’t want to let that go.”

Courage is not the exclusive domain of caped crusaders and first responders. When it comes to taking a stand, it’s often young people, with their starry eyes and stubborn wills, who prevail over grown-up cynicism and doubt. In two newly published children’s books — one an English translation of an Italian classic and the other an exploration of the tragic consequences of the Nazi occupation of France — bravery arrives in a pint-size package and is all the better for it.

While many districts have jumped to purchase new literacy resources as a means to align with research, we advocate for first taking the time to learn about what the research says about best practices. As instructional coaches, we sought to accomplish this by forming a literacy task force as part of a yearlong process within our district. In this article, we will walk you through the steps we took to establish the task force, the tools we used to facilitate the work, and the strategies to get over the hurdles that are sure to emerge.

Fifty years ago, Congress dramatically expanded schools’ responsibilities when it passed the nation’s primary special education law, requiring children with disabilities to receive a “free appropriate public education” alongside their non-disabled peers. The landmark legislation was reauthorized as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, in 1990, and amended again in 1997 and 2004. Fifty years after its initial passage, advocates for students with disabilities fear its promise is under threat, both from the original concern President Ford expressed—inadequate funding—and from newer issues, like changes in federal education policy. Here are four things to know: (1) The number of students with disabilities has grown steadily over time; (2) Federal funding for IDEA is well below targets outlined in the law; (3) Special education teacher shortages remain a top concern for schools; and (4) Advocates sound the alarm over IDEA enforcement worries.

Our house, not to mention the little free library in front of it, is overflowing with mysteries. My wife reads them nonstop and I do, too, whenever I find time between writing my own. I got hooked on the genre by Leroy Brown. Not the bad, bad man from the Jim Croce song, but the smartest kid in Idaville. Donald J. Sobol wrote 29 Encyclopedia Brown books, and growing up I couldn’t get enough of them. The books introduced me to deductive reasoning and the idea that mysteries invite you to participate by challenging you to figure it out before the characters. Here are some of my favorite books that ask young readers to do exactly that.

Melissa Stewart was the woman who first coined the term “Informational Fiction” to account for these eclectic, inventive skewings of reality, and when they’re done well they can be truly delightful and edifying. Today, I honor those books that are unafraid to use the best of both the fictional and nonfictional world together.

Education Week readers often return to useful opinion content that withstands the test of time. Below are the top 10 most-read opinion content published prior to 2025. #10: Assessment Strategies for English-Language Learners — four educators share practical assessment strategies to support English-language learners. #5. What Are the Best Strategies for Small-Group Instruction? For teachers starting out, take small steps in introducing small-group instruction. Try a single strategy, and add time as you go along.

Bobbi Sandrin and Marcia Klein are two former teachers who live in a retirement community about a half-mile away from Fields Road Elementary School in Gaithersburg. They’re part of about a dozen other seniors who volunteer at the school each week, a project that one of the community’s residents pitched earlier this year. Stephani Sausser, who teaches Ellie’s first-grade class, said the effort has had a positive impact in her classroom. Klein, known as “Granny M,” has a background in reading recovery, Sausser said, and will read with students one-on-one to help them build skills like sounding out words and putting sounds in words together. Sandrin, or “Granny B,” typically focuses on reading comprehension assignments.

Here are the year’s most notable picture and middle grade books, selected by our children’s books editor.

This year’s list of stories takes us to Chicago, where several public schools sit mostly empty due to under enrollment; to Baltimore, where students are navigating a complicated transit system to get to school, often causing them to miss their first period class; and to Austin, where tweens attend “cotillion” classes that teach them how to fold a napkin, hold utensils and dance. They also tell the stories of a beloved child care worker detained by ICE, a teen who tragically fell in love with a chatbot and Black-owned barbershops that have made it their mission to get boys in their communities to fall in love with reading. And there’s more…

School leaders can put a variety of measures in place to ensure that students feel safe, supported, and capable of learning. Our campaign to address chronic absenteeism, called “Every Day Counts,” was formed across 24 schools in the Hamilton Township School District, in partnership with the New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association. 

The U.S. Department of Education has announced $256 million in new Education Innovation and Research (EIR) grants to improve literacy nationwide. These grants are the first awards made using three of Secretary McMahon’s grantmaking priorities: strengthening evidence-based literacy instruction, expanding education choice, and returning education to the states. As a result of the Secretary’s policy of “returning education to the states,” ten of the 24 new awards went to state education agencies—marking the largest number of state-led literacy awards in any EIR competition and a significant increase over previous years. 

Pre-K educators are early learning experts whose voices and experiences can play a powerful role in informing education policy. RAND’s unique American Pre-K Teacher Survey (PTKS) is a nationally representative panel that captures the opinions and experiences of pre-K teachers working in public schools across the U.S. The PKTS provides critical information on an array of topics, including the use of curriculum materials and assessments to measure children’s learning, the availability and adequacy of instructional planning time, instructional alignment with kindergarten, professional learning activities, wages and benefits, well-being and working conditions, and retention.

With support from a local nonprofit, K-12 schools are partnering with early childhood care providers to deliver high-quality pre-K education. Together, they coordinate enrollment and instruction through ongoing, combined professional development with pre-K and kindergarten teachers. The goal is preparing students for kindergarten and ensuring a smooth transition into our local school system.

his year, a lot of my reporting focused on the dismantling of federally funded education research and statistics inside the Department of Education. But 2025 wasn’t only about watchdog work. Week after week, I also dug into new studies that reveal what is and what isn’t working in American classrooms. When I look back at the most-read stories, the pattern is unmistakable. You were hungry for clarity on special education, reading instruction, cellphones in schools and, of course, AI. Here are the 10 Proof Points that cut through the noise in 2025. 

There’s been a steady decline in Americans who read for pleasure over the past few decades, according to a recent study by researchers from the UK’s University College London and the University of Florida. There’s also considerable evidence to suggest that reading for pleasure is a key factor in the development of the complex reading comprehension skills that high school students need to succeed. Researchers noted that reading for pleasure has been dropping since the 1940s but were surprised by the extent of the recent decline, especially since the study included all forms of reading—print, e-books, and audiobooks—unlike many previous studies.

In classrooms across the country, teachers encounter a puzzling situation: A student reads fluently, even confidently, yet struggles to make sense of the text. It’s a disconnect that can leave educators frustrated and puzzled. How can a “good” reader still miss the meaning of what they read? In an era when schools are under pressure to produce data-driven results, the meaning behind those numbers often gets lost.

As artificial intelligence spreads to a growing number of career fields, experts say it’s important to introduce concepts surrounding the technology starting in elementary school, including how to — and how not — to use it, as well as how it works so students gain an understanding of why the algorithms behave the way they do. Code.org, a nonprofit dedicated to expanding computer science education, especially to underrepresented populations, is still exploring just how early an understanding of AI should be built, said Karim Meghji, chief product officer. The organization started out aiming its offerings at high school students, and then it filtered down to middle schoolers and, occasionally, the later grades in elementary school. 

By reimagining familiar tools—Chromebooks, tablets, and online collaboration platforms—teachers are turning 10 minutes of class time into intentional routines of play, reflection, and connection. These “micro-SEL” practices prove that compassion and creativity can stretch further than any scheduled block or program label.

We’ve made incredible strides in shifting the conversation toward evidence-based instruction, but I know we’re at a critical inflection point. While we–obviously–continue our work helping schools and districts adopt SOR, there’s an issue that stands in the way of real, sustained, progress: the staffing crisis and leadership churn that are leaving our educators overwhelmed and skeptical toward “change.” Without addressing these deeper structural issues, we risk stalling the momentum we’ve worked so hard to build. The data on teacher and leader turnover is bleak, and I’ve seen how it undermines the long-term commitment needed for any meaningful change. Consider this: Roughly 1 in 6 teachers won’t return to the same classroom next year, and nearly half of new teachers leave within their first five years. 

Annotation — regardless of whether it’s done in a print or digital format — integrates reading and writing in a way that strengthens the impacts of both, seeding greater comprehension and ongoing inquiry into the text in question, said Remi Kalir, associate director of faculty development and applied research at Duke University’s Learning Innovation & Lifetime Education office. Decades of research show the positive benefits of annotation for reading comprehension, the ability to analyze ideas, and the skill to communicate those ideas in writing, said Kali.

We’re back with our roundup of the most insightful studies of the year, from the power of brain breaks to groundbreaking research on AI, cell phones, and handwriting in the classroom.

Fifty years ago, special education in America was born. In 1975, President Gerald Ford signed the landmark law known today as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA. It guaranteed all children with disabilities the right to a “free appropriate public education.” Now, amid the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the Department of Education, there’s growing concern that protections for students with disabilities are in jeopardy.

Apprentice programs for early childhood education have been in place in different parts of the country for at least a decade, but San Francisco’s program stands out. It is unusually well, and sustainably, funded by a real estate tax voters approved in 2018. The money raised is meant to cover the cost of programs that train early childhood educators and to boost pay enough so teachers can see themselves doing it for the long term. Some policy experts see apprenticeships as a potential game changer for the early educator workforce. The layers of support they provide can keep frazzled newcomers from giving up, and required coursework may cost them nothing. 

Learn about what the states are doing to boost literacy. One example: Delaware Secretary of Education Cindy Marten has announced a new investment to strengthen and accelerate early literacy success across the state: The Bridge to Practice competitive grant. This initiative is intended to ensure that every child in Delaware is reading on grade level by the end of third grade. Part of Governor Meyer’s statewide literacy investment, the Bridge to Practice grant will help districts and charter schools implement evidence-based literacy practices grounded in the Science of Reading. Funding will focus on adoption and skillful use of high-quality classroom instructional materials, professional learning and student-centered coaching for educators, and innovative staffing models that increase student engage-ment and success.

Two decades of research across the U.S. also proves that two-way, dual-language programs can not only narrow the academic gap, but in some instances fully close it. Longitudinal studies show that multilingual learners often outperform their English-only peers in math, literacy, and graduation rates once reclassified. If multilingualism builds stronger students and communities, then schools must treat it as the asset it is. That means adopting curricula that support both language development and content learning, instead of watered down instruction. 

At the end of each year, as I wander through bookstores in search of holiday gifts, I’m always struck by the sheer number of children’s books I haven’t yet read or even heard about. As a writer, a parent, and the author of this column, it’s literally my job to know about books! This holiday season, when you visit your local bookstore to pick up the ten great books from the past year that I’ve recommended below, please take some extra time to ask the booksellers on duty what their own favorite new titles are. I guarantee you’ll leave with an armful of wonders.

In addition to opening public schools to a whole population of children, the IDEA law became the catalyst for legions of innovative practices and tools cultivated from both public and private sources. The transformations, special education experts say, were spurred by an ongoing need to individualize student supports while helping children with disabilities progress in general education classrooms. Many of these practices and technologies — such as universal design for learning, assistive technology, and positive behavioral interventions and supports — would not only be proven to help students with disabilities, but also to benefit their peers without disabilities.

Data released recently by the Indiana Department of Education showed 3.6% of the 84,000 children who took the statewide IREAD exam were retained in third grade under the first enforcement of a requirement approved by the Legislature in 2024. Those 3,040 retained students are more than seven times the 412 children held back in third grade two years ago. Education Secretary Katie Jenner credited improved performance by students in the IREAD exam given last school year with the retention figure being lower than anticipated when the literacy requirement was being debated.

All right, all right, all right! Let’s start this month off with a bang! A board book bang, that is. When you think about it, board books are a relatively new inclusion in the pantheon of children’s literature. For a long time (and, sadly, continuing to this day) parents were under the impression that reading to babies, toddlers, and preschoolers was a relative waste of time. Little did they suspect that the very seeds of literature love sometimes lie in these early engagements with books.

A recent study found less than half of children are read to daily. The consequences are serious for early learners who enter school unprepared. For many new parents, a dislike of reading stems from their own classroom experiences in the early 2000s that emphasized reading as a skill for testing. Many also are unfamiliar with the importance of reading to young children or may instead undervalue reading because of a dependence on online educational programs that have limited benefits for learning. For children not getting the benefits of being read to at home, the opportunity gap has widened, with those young students entering school unprepared compared to those who have been read to.

New research by HarperCollins UK reveals that parents are losing the love of reading aloud, with fewer than half sharing that reading to children is “no fun for me.” Gen Z respondents think of reading as “more a subject to learn than a fun thing to do.” Of course, this is alarming news for parents, educators, and all those who care about children and literacy. But we, librarians and lovers of stories and information, have the solution. It’s been ingrained in us since we entered this profession—it’s why we entered this profession. Bring back readers’ choice. Bring back read-alouds. Bring back the joy of reading. It’s why 28 librarians and five reviews editors came together to select 191 Best Books for children and young adults. Months of reading and discussion, spreadsheets and caffeine, all in service to this splendid list of enjoyable, excellent, and engaging books to preach that gospel.

When a complex phenomenon like learning is described in the objective, rigorous language of brain science, it feels like progress, reassuring us that teaching is grounded practice, not guesswork. But there is a subtle danger in allowing neuroscience to dominate our understanding of learning. When education is framed primarily as optimizing neural circuitry, we risk losing sight of the full complexity of human growth. When the brain becomes the only object of our concern, the richness of learning—its emotional, cultural, and ethical dimensions—can fade from view.

Loralyn LaBombard is the only reading specialist at Bow Memorial School, a middle school serving grades 5-8 in a leafy town outside Concord, N.H. In the world of literacy education, that is not an unusual distinction. After elementary school, many schools reduce or eliminate positions for supporting struggling readers. But several years ago, LaBombard started to feel like student needs were outpacing what she could handle. More middle schoolers needed help with foundational skills, like decoding words, and many students had the same gaps. Spearheaded by LaBombard, Bow has since launched an ambitious program to tackle foundational reading difficulties. In specialized classes across grades 5-8, students learn how to break down complex, multisyllabic words, improve their spelling, and practice reading fluently—all while also digging into novels and other whole books.

The state prioritized inclusivity for English learners in the tools it uses to screen for reading difficulties, says Robin Irey, education research specialist at the University of California-San Francisco Dyslexia Center. The center developed one of the state’s four recommended screening tools, called Multitudes. “We built in ways for the system to direct you to give Spanish and English in different measures after you get a sense of a child’s ability in both languages. That’s the benefit of a more thoughtful process,” she said, adding that specialists in African American English also were consulted to ensure that dialectical differences weren’t coded as errors.