Today’s Literacy Headlines

Just as more states are requiring schools to teach the fading art of cursive, many educators and researchers are calling for a parallel focus on the basic skill of keyboarding, particularly in the elementary grades. Learning the foundational skill early isn’t only sound life preparation, they argue, but it can set students up for academic success as high-stakes assessments increasingly go digital. And although students are growing up using smart phones and iPads, their natural inclination toward technology doesn’t mean they inherently know how to properly keyboard.

To my mind, a simple picture book is a picture book for younger readers. Preschoolers, for example. Adults (particularly adult reviewers) are rather enamored of providing children with thoughtful, complex picture books. I include myself in that statement. It can be difficult to understand how truly praiseworthy simple picture books and their basic texts are, and how much good they do for the youngest of readers. Today, we celebrate those rarities.

In his thought-provoking book, Brave New Words, Sal Khan discusses his early experimentation with generative AI, or GenAI, models and how, over time, they might change education. If AI is a new frontier, Brave New Words reads much like the field notes of an explorer documenting his experiences and trying to make sense of what they mean for teaching and learning. At the heart of Khan’s vision is the idea of AI-powered tutors that adapt to each student’s unique needs, abilities, and interests

U.S. fourth graders saw their math scores drop steeply between 2019 and 2023 on a key international test even as more than a dozen other countries saw their scores improve. Scores dropped even more steeply for American eighth graders, a grade where only three countries saw increases. The declines in fourth grade mathematics in the U.S. were among the largest in the participating countries, though American students are still in the middle of the pack internationally. The extent of the decline seems to be driven by the lowest performing students losing more ground, a worrying trend that predates the pandemic.

International testing data released Wednesday offered the latest evidence of U.S. learning loss since the pandemic, with American students falling behind some of their European peers, average scores in the subject fell to the level seen in 1995, struggling students are especially in trouble, and a gender gap re-emerging between boys and girls in STEM disciplines. 

After missing 40 days of school last year, Tommy Betom, 10, is on track this year for much better attendance. The importance of showing up has been stressed repeatedly at school — and at home. When he went to school last year, he often came home saying the teacher was picking on him and other kids were making fun of his clothes. But Tommy’s grandmother Ethel Marie Betom, who became one of his caregivers after his parents split, said she told him to choose his friends carefully and to behave in class. He needs to go to school for the sake of his future, she told him.

The 2024 Nation’s Report Card will debut a new measure of student socioeconomic status upon its release in early 2025, according to a November announcement by the National Assessment Governing Board. Instead of solely relying on students’ eligibility for free or reduced-price lunch to gauge low socioeconomic status, the National Assessment of Educational Progress will also include new measurements — specifically, the number of books in a student’s home and the highest level of education of either parent. 

Educators maximize learning when we make our thinking and strategies visible to students by modeling or providing an example. Additionally, asking students to make their thinking visible to others allows us to see their strengths and the next steps needed to effectively coach and support deeper learning. While we often think of visible learning as written text, it can also include oral language, particularly early in elementary school. We can gain a great deal of understanding from listening to others. Here are some teaching practices that support visible learning.

I’ve picked out my absolute favorite picture books of the year that stand up as high quality and kid-friendly. So, what makes a picture book stand out to me? Here’s what I’m looking for specifically: Exceptional writing. (Not too wordy.) Beautiful, interesting, or charming illustrations. Re-readable stories. Kid-friendly stories and topics. (Nothing didactic. Nothing where the kid does not have agency. Nothing that only adults would like.) These are the picture book recommendations that check all my boxes.

As students write using sentence stems, they are actively encoding words and applying their phonemic awareness skills, while transferring their understanding of phonics concepts. Vocabulary and comprehension skills are strengthened, and fluency is practiced as students reread their sentences out loud. This holistic approach pays dividends for teachers and students alike.

It isn’t enough to write a good picture book. If you want to command a room and capture the attention of your young listeners, you need to write the kind of picture book that excels as a readaloud. The truth? Not every picture book does that. Heck, a lot of them don’t even come close. Today, we celebrate the few that do. The books that you can stand in front of a room of twitchy children and enrapture in mere moments thanks to the power of words and images (and your own vocal chords) alone.

Young kids can learn to appreciate the natural world and to problem solve around climate change. In the earliest grades, lessons should focus on cultivating an appreciation for and understanding of the natural world, said Emily Townsend, K-5 education specialist at SubjectToClimate, which provides resources for educators on climate instruction. Students can learn about how plants, animals, humans and the planet are interconnected, and how changes to the planet affect those living beings.

The founder of Khan Academy and Khanmigo believes AI can deliver the personalized instruction students need, while freeing up teachers to do what they do best. AI can help human teachers with time-intensive tasks like lesson planning and assessment writing, and free up valuable “time for personalized learning, hands-on activities, or classroom conversation” — the sort of assistance that, rather than replacing teachers, can make them “more valuable, not less.”

Sustained tutoring designed to help kids catch up is intensive, structured, and highly relational, typically consisting of students working in 30-minute sessions three or more times a week with a trained educator. Now, a new initiative is training tutors for the rigor and intensity needed to make it effective.

Two new literacy/dyslexia laws were signed last month by Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer at Gardner International Magnet School in Lansing. “Kids won today,” said state superintendent Dr. Michael F. Rice. “This is the most consequential education legislation signed in Michigan in the past two decades, with the possible exception of historic state school aid budgets for fiscal years 2023 and 2024. In the coming years, Michigan children learning to read will benefit enormously.”

In my school district, there is active encouragement to have less “teacher talk” and more academic conversation and interaction between students, which both honors their perspective and increases their opportunities to speak and listen to each other. This year, I’m weaving together one new and three updated practices that encourage student conversation and listening. 

In a still life painting, the subjects cannot move. That’s the rule according to the very authoritative artist in Alex London’s new children’s book, Still Life. Unfortunately for the artist, his still life painting doesn’t care about the rules. Instead — a mouse takes a bite out of the hunk of cheese and leaves its jammy footprints on the tablecloth. A knight chases a dragon and a princess goes on a quest. Coins spill, ink splatters, the tablecloth falls off the easel and the painting has gone entirely rogue.

In 1984, 35 percent of 13-year-olds reported reading for fun “almost every day,” according to NAEP. By 2023, that figure was down to 14 percent, and 31 percent of respondents said they never read for fun at all. Kids are also faring worse on tests that measure their information literacy, including their ability to recognize reliable sources. Those results are indicative of a broader problem. Kids may be learning basic literacy, but “they’re not reading in the ways that they need to read in order to be prepared for the tasks of learning and critical thinking,” Harvard professor Catherine Snow said. 

Research has shown that PLCs can improve student learning and build teachers’ collective efficacy. But after the inspection phase—identifying core goals, reviewing lessons and units, analyzing data, building assessments, and reflecting on our impact—some PLCs struggle to move into the action phase, where strategies are implemented. This four-step process can help teacher teams successfully transition from the planning phase to the action phase.

“Practice gratitude.” It’s a simple instruction we see on tote bags, coffee mugs and yoga T-shirts. Yet it can often feel nearly impossible to maintain this habit. Just remember: Our kids are listening. Stories of giving and of appreciating everyday wonders will warm hearts and teach valuable lessons this holiday season. Build back your gratitude muscle by sharing these 10 picture books with the little ones in your life. 

Sometimes as educators, you need to look outside of the classroom and beyond the walls of the school to find people who can inspire students and yourselves as teachers in ways you could not have imagined. Our schools are in communities full of people with talents that can benefit teaching and learning. Educators can seek these resources within their community to enhance their pedagogy and their students’ experience with the curriculum. Additionally, teachers can learn from and connect with their surrounding community.

Reporting on the 40th anniversary of the popular pizza literacy program sent one writer on a mozzarella-scented memory trail. [She] found half a dozen Book It! alums who remembered the program’s signature punch cards, and recalled how it had helped them discover books like Donald J. Sobol’s “Encyclopedia Brown” series and Ann M. Martin’s “Baby-Sitters Club” books.

Past research has shown that learning a second language may positively affect attention, healthy aging, and even recovery after brain injury. A new study from the Neuro (Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital) of McGill University, the University of Ottawa, and the University of Zaragoza in Spain elaborates on bilingualism’s role in cognition, showing increased efficiency of communication between brain regions.

My students come from all over the world. Many are from Latin American countries, where oral storytelling is deeply rooted in their culture. Storytelling traditions are passed down through generations in a way that emphasizes speaking and listening, often with an focus on personal connection and community. Here’s how to build a culture of reading to welcome students who are learning a new language, particularly those who come from strong oral storytelling traditions. 

Teaching English-language learners presents several challenges that educators must navigate to ensure effective instruction. These challenges often stem from linguistic, cultural, and academic differences that ELLs bring to the classroom, making it crucial for teachers to adopt strategies that address these diverse needs.

For the last several years, Dr. Reese of Nambé Pueblo, a writer, scholar, and educator, has tracked bans of books related to the lives of Native Americans. Last month, she joined the successful call by freedom to read advocates for Montgomery County, Texas, to reconsider its decision to reclassify from juvenile nonfiction to fiction a celebrated book that presents the Indigenous perspective on European colonization. For Native American Heritage Month, Dr. Reese discussed with PEN America how she first came across stereotypes, how to change and shape the discourse, and why it is important to get it right in children’s literature.

Students who started school as English learners but later shed that designation by becoming proficient in the language are more likely than their classmates to graduate from high school and enroll in college, all after post superior grade point averages in school. That’s according to a new study from researchers at the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research that adds to a growing body of research finding that former English learners tend to outperform their peers who never received English language services.

A new paper published by AEI’s Conservative Education Reform Network (CERN), Grading Florida’s Schools: A for Achievement and Return on Investment, suggests that even as ed reform’s attention was diverted elsewhere, Florida has kept its eye on the ball and delivered good results. Florida was one of only five states where NAEP scores for fourth-grade reading did not decline during the Covid years. And Florida ranks third nationally in fourth-grade reading performance while having the third-lowest spending per pupil.

For the past few years, the Philadelphia School District has used a homegrown curriculum created by Philadelphia teachers. This curriculum focused on using state standards to organize and teach reading, writing and speaking. The district believes the new and more structured curriculum is better aligned with the science of reading and will help standardize instruction across classrooms and schools. The new curriculum combines what it calls “word knowledge” and “world knowledge.”

In the classroom, teachers may be faced with a dilemma: Should they treat students who stutter the same as their peers, or acknowledge their unique needs and adjust expectations accordingly? The goal is to find the right balance between both, says Minneapolis-based speech-language therapist Sheila Cina. Relying on a set of targeted, compassionate, evidence-based strategies can make a classroom more welcoming for students who stutter, enabling them to learn more effectively. 

The Finnish writer and illustrator Tove Jansson is best known for her beloved Moomin characters, immortalized around the world in comic strips and books. But in 1966, Jansson brought her unique touch to a very different world of strange creatures: Lewis Carroll’s classic “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” an English edition of which has finally been published in the United States. Jansson’s off-kilter whimsy and ability to convey moodiness is a perfect match for both the delights and the terrors of Wonderland.

At least 25 states have passed laws about how schools teach reading since APM Reports’ Sold a Story podcast was released in 2022. Lawmakers have been taking a closer look at what curriculum schools are buying, and, in some states, attempting to outlaw specific teaching methods. The legislative efforts come at a time when fourth grade reading scores in the U.S. have declined consistently since 2015. But proponents of the disproven ideas about reading exposed in the podcast haven’t given up.

University of Würzburg researchers concluded that when students were explicitly trained to recognize when they lost track of sentence-level information or got stuck on passages—and were taught metacognitive strategies to “plan, monitor, and regulate their reading”—they were able to successfully re-route their attention. To convince students of the importance of effective comprehension strategies—re-reading, annotation, or stopping to look-up unknown words, for example—it’s important to explain the long-term benefits of persisting through complex texts, literacy expert Timothy Shanahan told Edutopia in a 2023 interview. 

AI can empower educators to identify language objectives within lessons and tailor instruction for MLLs, fostering growth in content knowledge and language proficiency. Regardless of the content in the lesson or the language proficiency levels in the classroom, the process is the same: Ask the AI tool for language objectives according to the content of your lesson and the grade level and language proficiency level of the student. Ask for specific examples of the supports listed in the language objective.

Alarm bells. Red flags. A labyrinth. These are just a few of the metaphors that mothers of children with dyslexia use to describe the journey from noticing their child’s literacy challenges to receiving a diagnosis and then advocating to secure services to help their children succeed. By paying attention to the images used in these metaphors, teachers and administrators can better understand the difficulties parents and children face and learn to be more responsive.

Remember how big that word was when you were small, when you just wanted to keep going? Two new multilingual picture books present child’s-eye views of the word “go” in all its simplicity and complexity. Julie Flett’s “Let’s Go! haw êkwa!” and Kirsten Cappy and Yaya Gentille’s “Kende! Kende! Kende!” both capture its magic, though in many ways they could not be more different.

One Tennessee school district’s list of nearly 400 books removed from library shelves, including titles by authors ranging from Dr. Seuss to Toni Morrison, is being used by other school systems as a possible template to follow. The purges come under Gov. Bill Lee’s 2022 “age-appropriate” school library law, which lawmakers expanded this year.

Primary schools should measure pupils’ reading fluency to help tackle the disadvantage gap and narrow the gender divide at key stage 2, new research suggests. Given that oral reading fluency is quick and easy to assess, “it’s likely to be an extremely useful indicator for schools to measure”, the researchers conclude.

More than 50,000 children are hospitalized each year nationwide with an acquired brain injury, according to research. Teachers can expect to have at least one student with history of a concussion or head injury in their class each year. A traumatic brain injury, or TBI, is caused by a blow, bump, or jolt to the head or body and can cause physical, cognitive, and perception symptoms—things like headaches, nausea, confusion or disorientation, changes in sleep patterns, frustration and irritability, sensitivity to light and sound, or fatigue. Here is a downloadable tip sheet spells out advice for educators to consider when they have a student in their class who suffers from a concussion or TBI.

Lucy Calkins was an education superstar. Now she’s cast as the reason a generation of students struggles to read. No matter how painful the past few years have been, though, Calkins is determined to keep fighting for her legacy. At 72, she has both the energy to start over again at Mossflower (the successor to the Calkins center at Teachers College) and the pragmatism to have promised her estate to further the cause once she’s gone. Now that balanced literacy is as unfashionable as whole language, Calkins is trying to come up with a new name for her program. She thought she might try “comprehensive literacy”—or maybe “rebalancing literacy.” Whatever it takes for America to once again feel confident about “teaching Lucy.”

New research led by a team from Royal Holloway and the World Bank asserts that teaching methods should improve, after discovering that global literacy goals will not be met without major intervention. The study, which is published in Nature Human Behaviour, concluded that evidence-based reading instruction methods—such as systematic phonics—should be put into practice as soon as possible in low- and middle-income countries.

City officials want to close a shrinking Brooklyn school, replacing it with a new one designed to help struggling readers, modeled on an innovative program that launched last year in the Bronx. City officials hope the building used by M.S. 394 in Crown Heights will become the home of the Central Brooklyn Literacy Academy, which would be the second city-operated public school exclusively devoted to students with dyslexia and other reading challenges.

Students can explore science concepts through an activity that encourages them to record their observations in thoughtful ways. To do this work with students, we can provide encouragement to remove obstacles such as worrying about making perfect pictures or thinking that their own questions aren’t interesting (which prevents them from recording their thoughts and ideas). I like to start with the mnemonic INIWIRMO, “I notice, I wonder, it reminds me of.” 

The first week of November this year marks National Children’s Book Week, the nation’s oldest and most celebrated literacy initiative. Reading with young children creates cherished memories and encourages the development of foundational literacy and language skills. In recognition of the week, University of Delaware experts in the College of Education and Human Development (CEHD) share guidance on fostering early literacy, selecting books, using digital tools and more. Parents and caregivers may be surprised to learn that they are already engaging in one of the most impactful activities for fostering early literacy: talking with their children. Literacy and child development experts encourage adults to talk with children from the time they are infants. 

A new animated series for young children premiering Nov. 14 will be PBS Kids’ first to feature main characters with autism, the network reports. “Carl the Collector,” aimed at 4-to-8-year-olds, was designed to celebrate the variety and potential of neurodivergent kids, and to expand perspectives of autism. The show follows the adventures of avid collector Carl, a raccoon who has autism, and friends including an empathetic beaver, a squirrel with a tree nut allergy and a hypersensitive fox, who is also autistic.

The 10 winners of The New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Children’s Books Award are chosen each year by a rotating panel of three expert judges. On the 2024 panel were the Caldecott Medal-winning illustrator Doug Salati; the Hans Christian Andersen Medal-winning author Jacqueline Woodson; and the children’s librarian Daniella Pagan.

The National Institutes of Health has awarded a $3.6 million grant to researchers at Florida State University and Ohio State University to develop effective interventions that support early phonological awareness in young children to help prevent reading difficulties. Over the next five years, Florida State University’s Beth Phillips and Ohio State University’s Shayne Piasta will lead Project OPAL (Optimizing Early Phonological Awareness Instruction to Support Reading and Spelling Acquisition). They will conduct two studies to identify the best approaches for improving reading and spelling skills in preschool and kindergarten students. The studies aim to resolve scientific debates on what content should be included in interventions, when they should be administered and ultimately provide guidance toward more effective solutions.

When former educator Danielle Bayard Jackson was called into the principal’s office, she was told to stop reading whole books with her students. She was advised to focus on chapters and summaries instead, in preparation for upcoming standardized tests that emphasized shorter passages. “I knew I was being asked to do something that would be a disservice to my kids,” Jackson recalled. She continued to read full books with her students, who later scored well on the standardized tests. Jackson’s experience is common; many teachers face pressure to use excerpts rather than complete works, which aligns with test formats but may impact students’ reading endurance and comprehension, according to journalist Rose Horowitch in The Atlantic.

It’s not enough for schools to help students with learning differences or disabilities shore up their academic weaknesses. Students also need to learn how to communicate with others—particularly adults—about their unique needs, experts say. Self-advocacy is a vital skill for future success in college and the workforce for students with dyslexia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or other learning challenges. Throughout their lives, neurodivergent students will find themselves in situations where they must explain the particulars of their learning differences or disabilities to teachers, coworkers, and employers as well as what accommodations they need to succeed—whether it’s a formal individualized education program, extra time to perform tasks, or simply what they know helps them do their best work.

A Delaware-based study found that a substantive increase in young immigrants leads to sizable academic gains for students who were already in English learner programs or who had graduated from them. And at a time when immigrant students are portrayed as a drain on U.S. schools, researchers also found that those who had never been enrolled in English learner programs were not significantly impacted. Their performance improved, but by a negligible amount. 

Perhaps the ultimate test is whether it merits a reread, even after all the objects have been found. Scientists tell us that tasks like solving puzzles or finding hidden images are linked to the brain’s reward system. “Aha” moments when we locate an elusive item release a hit of dopamine, which creates a sensation of pleasure and motivates us to keep going. This may help explain why Highlights has never stopped running “Hidden Pictures,” and why the Where’s Waldo?, I Spy and Can You See What I See? series are still going strong, decades after their debuts.

If knowledge matters more than academic skills, how should administrators and teachers alter the curriculum and instruction in schools to best serve students? We’ve confirmed the theory. Now what does it mean for practice? Decades ago, E.D. Hirsch created the Core Knowledge Foundation, as he believed his insights pointed primarily to the challenge of getting curriculum right: Schools must sequence a knowledge-rich progression of learning both across and within grades. He’s correct about the centrality of curriculum, but there are also instructional practices that teachers can adopt to prioritize knowledge even if their school or district doesn’t adopt Core Knowledge or another knowledge-rich curriculum such as Wit and Wisdom.

Jeff Kinney is on the road again. A new “Wimpy Kid” release and subsequent road trip by the author and his team have become an annual event each fall. For Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Hot Mess, the 19th book in the best-selling series, Kinney scheduled a tour of 14 interactive shows, as well as three planned school events and at least five spontaneous pop-ups along the tour route, stopping at bookstores, libraries, and outdoor areas. At the schools and pop-up visits, Kinney will give kids the opportunity to choose a free book from a diverse collection provided by First Book.

Struggling readers in upper elementary grades and beyond can benefit from decoding instruction to help boost their reading proficiency, including comprehension skills, according to a new study. Without foundational word recognition skills, it can be difficult for struggling older readers to improve their comprehension of grade-level texts, the study by the Advanced Education Research and Development Fund and the Educational Testing Service found. Early and targeted interventions are critical for helping upper elementary and middle school students understand texts that have increasingly complicated sentences and multisyllabic words.

Human brains can discern the basic structures of written language from a single glance — enabling us to quickly consume the torrent of information fed to us by smartphones, a new study finds. This means that people can process words as quickly as we comprehend visual scenes, a skill that enables us to continually observe and navigate the world around us. The new finding, published in the journal Science Advances, could help reveal key clues about how our brains encode language, the researchers said.

A new study offers evidence that “the human cortex displays a progressive increase in phonetic encoding during nursery rhyme listening across the first year of life.” The implication: at seven months, infants can already detect phonological information in singsong rhythms, where the rhythmic information supports that. This speaks to the vital importance of library programs for the very young to help model songs and rhymes to families. 

A study published in the journal JAMA Network Open indicates that autism prevalence jumped from 2.3 per 1,000 to 6.3 per 1,000 during the decade 2011-2022. The highest prevalence of autism was seen among children ages 5 to 8, the study found. “The improvement and expansion of universal developmental screening likely accounts for some of the increase in diagnosis rates we found in this study,” said Luke Grosvenor, the study’s lead author and a research fellow at the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research.

A whole-school approach helps teachers model how to break down discipline-specific texts. One of the core findings in the research on how students learn to read is the importance of developing the background knowledge needed to keep learning new content. But what gets more complicated, researchers point out, is that the tools that experts in each discipline use to read begin to evolve differently as the texts get more sophisticated.

New research shows that some older students hit a “decoding threshold.” Over 20% of students in fifth through seventh grade stumble over words they don’t recognize or can’t sound out, often preventing them from grasping the main idea of reading materials for school, according to the study released Wednesday from the Educational Testing Service and the Advanced Education Research and Development Fund.

AI offers educators valuable resources to help build libraries that are both diverse and accessible. For instance, AI tools such as Perplexity can assist in curating a wide range of multicultural texts, making it easier to build both digital and physical classroom libraries.