Today’s Literacy Headlines

“The Southern surge” — learning gains in a number of Southern states — has drawn a remarkable wave of attention in recent weeks. A growing chorus of voices say these states offer a playbook to reverse a decade of nationwide learning declines. It’s “the biggest education story of the last few years,” wrote David Brooks in the New York Times. It’s even come up in the New Jersey governor’s race. Is the Southern surge real? And if so, what can other states learn from it? Here’s what I found: While there has not exactly been a region-wide “Southern surge,” there have been some notable Southern success stories, especially in fourth grade. There appear to be lessons to learn from these states, particularly around a specific set of policies designed to help young children learn to read.

More than 22 million children — mostly from low-income and families of color — face barriers to care after 3 p.m., according to a new report. Thousands of American families, mostly low-income and families of color, face persistent barriers enrolling their children in after school and summer programs, according to a report released earlier this month from the nonprofit advocacy group Afterschool Alliance. The America After 3PM report found in a survey of more than 30,500 parents earlier this year  about 77% who want to enroll their children in after school programs can’t — most citing cost, accessibility and availability as the main issues. 

North Carolina stands out nationally with all 18 fundamental principles of early literacy firmly in place to support educators and student learning. The foundation has been laid for a robust, sustainable implementation structure. While the statewide rollout of LETRS professional development was both powerful and necessary, the next phase requires ongoing coaching aligned to data and high-quality instructional materials (HQIM) to deepen and sustain these early gains. Effective implementation takes time, commitment, and hard work. For science of reading laws to succeed, we need to figure out how to best support educators. They need to both feel like they are not alone and believe the journey will be worth it.

Timothy Shanahan, a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has spent his career evaluating education research and helping teachers figure out what works best in the classroom. In his new book, “Leveled Reading, Leveled Lives,” Shanahan takes aim at one of the most common teaching practices in American classrooms: matching students with “just-right” books. He argues that the approach — where students read different texts depending on their assessed reading level — is holding many children back. Teachers spend too much time testing students and assigning leveled books, he says, instead of helping all students learn how to understand challenging texts.

Devan Chopra is reading to a pre-school classroom in Grafton, West Virginia. She’s holding up the book Pete the Cat. “I’m here because I really want to spread the love of reading,” she said. The high school junior came to this Head Start program at the Webster Pre School as a volunteers with the LiTEArary Society, an international group started in West Virginia that gets new picture books to preschool children to develop a love of reading. The group collects books and takes them to classrooms like this one for students to take home. It’s an area where books are not always readily available to children.

While changes to policy and practice in states across the country are encouraging, we will not be able to dramatically increase the number of students reading on grade level without more deliberate engagement of parents. We need to better equip parents and caregivers to accelerate literacy gains through greater transparency and accountability, and by addressing common system gaps. States, districts, and schools must harness parent power to increase the impact of existing policies and enlist parents and caregivers as partners in boosting literacy instruction implementation. The key components are: (1) Equipping parents and caregivers as partners in accountability; (2) Increasing awareness of student literacy performance; and (3) Providing actionable recommendations for parents and caregivers.

As a teacher, I want to show students that science is not about memorizing information, but about asking questions regarding the world around you and investigating to find the answers. When I first started teaching elementary science, I stuck to the textbook and videos I could find online. It felt impossible to plan hands-on activities for my 24 students and fit everything into our 30-minute science block, even if I desperately wanted them to have active learning experiences. Students moving around the room with science material can feel chaotic. I learned that with a few systems in place, these experiences can be fun and meaningful for both students and teachers. Incorporating hands-on activities in the elementary science classroom can help learning feel worthwhile and memorable.

Ohio’s drive to boost reading scores using the science of reading has had a rocky start in the two years since Gov. Mike DeWine fought for the change, with scores going the wrong direction. Even with millions spent on new textbooks, and teachers required to take online science of reading training, third grade English Language Arts proficiency fell from 62% in spring of 2023 to 61% earlier this year. It’s still unclear whether the scores are cause for alarm or just a natural part of the transition as Ohio joins the flood of states shifting to phonics-heavy lessons to help students decode and understand words better. Some supporters of the science of reading believe small gains should happen almost immediately, even if it takes longer for large improvements statewide.

Analysis of Louisiana schools reveals that it’s very difficult to earn a high overall rating if low-income kids are not doing well. A handful of states, including Louisiana, Florida and Mississippi, each have accountability systems that give schools points based on the academic growth of their lowest-performing students. Given the national trends where performance has fallen further among these children, more states should consider such measures. While policymakers can take some heart in knowing that good schools tend to be consistently good across student groups, the flip side is also true: Bad schools tend to be bad for everyone, and state policymakers should focus more on district-level performance issues than within-school gaps.

The September request from the U.S. Department of Education for information asked how the Institute of Education Sciences could function more smoothly across its four centers; better meet state and local leaders’, educators’, and parents’ needs; deliver more timely and accessible statistics and research; modernize its peer review of research proposals and IES reports and grantmaking; and scale up the dissemination of research-backed practices. Some organizations proposed creating grants to communicate concepts beyond journal publications aimed at academics, translating findings into tools like dashboards or policy briefs, and simplifying how educators can search through research so they can ask questions in “plain English.” Others suggested streamlining IES surveys, and releasing preliminary research findings at key study milestones, rather than waiting until the studies conclude. Many organizations urged the department to uphold its historical role of collecting data—one of the earliest federal undertakings in education dating back to the Civil War era.

The evidence is incontrovertible that the great majority of teachers haven’t been brought up to speed to teach reading, which is a lot more demanding than you think. Still, no surprise, there’s no ready fix. Improvements in each of the training modes are necessary. But there is one reform that can be a gamechanger: It’s classroom coaching that allows well-trained coaches to work one-on-one with classroom teachers. In fact, classroom coaches are key drivers in state Superintendent Carey Wright’s flagship early literacy initiative. Wright, who came to nationwide fame for the remarkable increase in literacy that occurred when she was state superintendent in Mississippi, cites classroom coaches as a vital, if not indispensable, feature of the “Mississippi miracle.”

Imaginative play areas that once occupied a dominant part of the kindergarten landscape—think dress-up corners, easels and paints, stacks of blocks—have, in many instances, been replaced with literacy corners and science centers. Getting along with classmates and learning to follow simple instructions from a teacher also have been sidelined as the primary goals of kindergarten. Now, most kindergarten teachers are focused primarily on preparing young learners for future academic success. The changes have not gone unnoticed by educators, parents, and policymakers. In recent years, some educators have begun to push back against the “academization” of kindergarten. These voices have gotten the attention of state policymakers; in turn, a few states have begun to push for a return to play in kindergarten, including Connecticut, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, and Oregon.

While no official plan is in place yet, it’s Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s goal to shut down the department, said an agency spokesperson. As rumors swirled that special education programs could soon be leaving their longtime home at the U.S. Department of Education, a spokesperson confirmed on Tuesday that the agency is “exploring additional partnerships” with other federal agencies to support this programming. Both President Donald Trump and McMahon have named the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as a potential partner in overseeing federal special education activities. 

The Kentucky Department of Education’s Kentucky Reading Academies have rapidly advanced literacy outcomes for early learners since the professional learning program began three years ago, according to a new report from a third-party evaluator. The report shows increases in student reading scores and educator knowledge in evidence-based literacy practices. The goal behind the academies is to promote educators’ knowledge, beliefs and classroom instruction in evidence-based literacy practices to improve student reading outcomes. Facilitated by the Kentucky Department of Education’s (KDE’s) Division of Early Literacy, the academies provide access to Lexia’s Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling, better known as LETRS, an evidence-based professional learning that is rooted in the science of reading.

Works by Jane Godwin, Joshua David Stein and Matthew Diffee find new lenses through which to explore an old subject, in lovely and surprising ways. Although friendship is the subject of countless picture books, it’s incredibly difficult to “explain people” to a young child in an authentic, convincing way, and with all the friendship books out there it’s even harder to find a new lens through which to explore the subject. These three books accomplish just that.

Jumpstart, a national organization that recruits and trains adults to teach foundational literacy skills to preschoolers, is partnering with Little Free Library to expand the 20th anniversary celebration for its Read for the Record early literacy initiative. Read for the Record is, according to a release issued by the two organizations, “the world’s largest shared reading experience, uniting millions of readers to read the same book on the same day while raising awareness of the critical importance of early literacy.” More than 30 million people have participated in Read for the Record since 2005.

Across Philadelphia, young kids are waiting months and sometimes years for early intervention services that they are legally entitled to, according to families, therapy providers, and advocates Chalkbeat spoke with. Federal law states a child must receive services as soon as possible after an evaluation team completes their Individualized Education Program, or IEP. Pennsylvania has interpreted that to mean 14 days. But one provider said the list she can access of children waiting for speech therapy — one of several early intervention services — is sometimes more than 2,000 families long.

North Carolina is one of several states that have passed legislation in recent years to align classroom reading instruction with the research on how children learn to read. But ensuring all students have access to research-backed instruction is a marathon, not a sprint, said education leaders and researchers from across the country. Teachers need coaching, ongoing training to move from ‘science of reading’ knowledge to practice, researchers suggest.

Researchers from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Germany, and other institutions have completed the biggest genetic study ever on dyslexia. Their recent paper in Translational Psychiatry reveals several new areas of DNA that are linked to a higher chance of having dyslexia. The researchers were able to identify 13 new genetic loci linked to dyslexia, which were implicated in early brain development processes.

The editors of The New York Times Book Review bring you board books for babies, R.L. Stine’s favorite Halloween books for kids, zany read-alouds, the essential Shel Silverstein, graphic novels for Dav Pilkey fans, bedtime reads, stories to soothe anxious toddlers, books about siblings, Lemony Snicket’s favorite hidden gems and more!

At Gilles-Sweet Elementary in Fairview Park, Ohio, kindergarten teacher Keri Laughlin combines movement and phonics to help her students build the foundational literacy skills they’ll need as readers. Phonics can be challenging for young learners, but by turning the lesson into a multisensory experience, Laughlin gives students multiple ways to connect letters and sounds—so that learning sticks in both their minds and their bodies. Laughlin uses three different strategies to teach phonemes, each one offering students a way to physically connect letter sounds to movement.

Teachers across California are rushing to learn how to test students on vocabulary, how well they know their letters and the sounds they make, and how quickly they can name objects or letters in a row. These are some of the skills to be measured by new screening tests that school districts are using for the first time to evaluate all children in kindergarten through second grade to see if they may be at risk for reading difficulties, such as dyslexia. Alongside new laws that aim to change the way reading is taught in school and how teachers are prepared to do so, the screenings — available in English and Spanish — form part of a comprehensive, yet fragmented, state literacy plan now being rolled out after years in the making to get more California children reading by the third grade.

In state after state, governors and legislatures have enacted “science of reading” laws intended to overhaul how children are taught to read—mandating changes in curricula, teacher training, intervention, and accountability. They’re meant to boost weak reading scores and close literacy gaps. Yet an important question remains: Will these laws live up to their potential? This year’s Wonkathon asks: What needs to happen next—at the state, district, and school levels—for the science-of-reading revolution to fulfill its promise and ensure that far more children learn to read well? For eleven years now, we at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute have hosted an annual Wonkathon on our Flypaper blog to generate substantive conversation around key issues in education reform. 

The author of the Seeds of America trilogy recommends books that run the gamut from Native American history to the civil rights movement. Anderson says, “Writers of historical fiction for children bear a special responsibility. We are called to balance our duty to reflect the past accurately with our obligation to write developmentally appropriate stories for our readers. The wonderful books below fulfill that mission with artistry and craft.”

Many autistic girls mask their struggles, appearing cheerful and capable in class while quietly running on empty. Because autism has long been described through a “male lens,” girls’ needs are often overlooked, and calm can conceal significant struggle. Here are the strategies I’ve used in my own teaching practice that can help create a more welcoming classroom space for autistic girls to feel secure, confident, and ready to learn.

When it comes to reading, the nation’s third- through eighth-graders are still mired in a pandemic-era slump, according to new testing data. In math, the news is only a little more heartening: Student achievement in those grades either held steady or improved slightly, though all grades remain behind performance levels of same-grade students in 2019. The data comes from NWEA, a K-12 testing and research organization, and its Spring 2025 MAP Growth assessment, a suite of tests taken by millions of students in thousands of U.S. schools.

Social emotional learning — lessons in soft skills like listening to people you disagree with or calming yourself down before a test — has become a flashpoint in the culture wars. While the political battle rages on, academic researchers are marshalling evidence for what high-quality SEL programs actually deliver for students. The latest study, by researchers at Yale University, summarizes 12 years of evidence, from 2008 to 2020, and it finds that 30 different SEL programs, which put themselves through 40 rigorous evaluations involving almost 34,000 students, tended to produce “moderate” academic benefits.

Book deserts are not a problem that can solely be solved with access to free digital books. The need for physical books to give children the experience of flipping pages and interacting with real books is still crucial for most of the children we work with each day. As literacy professionals, it is imperative we review the literacy practices in our schools and districts for the students and families we serve to ensure equity. We must enact new ideas to ensure we serve children in the most creative fashion imaginable. We must create policies and procedures which consider fairness for children who are in underserved communities. Additionally, we must provide access to books for the most vulnerable children to ensure we pique the reading interests of children. Here are 10 suggestions for schools looking to address the pressing reality of book deserts. 

Sweeping layoffs announced Friday by the Trump administration landed another body blow to the U.S. Department of Education, this time gutting the office responsible for overseeing special education, according to multiple sources within the department. The reduction-in-force, or RIF, affects the dozens of staff members responsible for roughly $15 billion in special education funding and for making sure states provide special education services to the nation’s 7.5 million children with disabilities. According to sources, all staff in the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS), with the exception of a handful of top officials and support staff, were cut in Friday’s RIF. The office is the central nervous system for programs that support students with disabilities, not only offering guidance to families but providing monitoring and oversight of states to make sure they’re complying with the landmark Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

On Friday, October 10, 2025, the Trump administration laid off about 460 people at the Department of Education, part of mass layoffs across the government. The Department of Education layoffs included almost everybody in the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS). OSERS houses the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP). OSEP makes sure states are following the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and offers support to families. It’s also responsible for nearly $15 billion in funding for special education. We still don’t have a lot of information about what the recent cuts to OSEP mean. We’ll do our best to answer some questions you may have, and we’ll keep updating this article as we learn new information.

While teachers are surrounded by colleagues who can share ideas and offer advice, many school librarians are often on their own. Every. Single. Day. What’s the solution? A Personal Learning Community (PLC). Imagine monthly online meetings with a group of librarians working with the same grade levels to discuss a specific topic, such as revitalizing a nonfiction collection. It’s a chance to learn and grow, build camaraderie, and commiserate. In early 2022, library and literacy researchers Mary Ann Cappiello, Xenia Hadjioannou, and Pam Harland had this vision and brought it to life for a group of 11 New Hampshire elementary school librarians.

An educator with 20-plus years of experience on crafting creative and energizing lessons. To simplify and energize instructional design, I’ve developed three powerful lenses that guide the process — (1) design a scenario, (2) seek partnerships, and (3) lead with the outcome These lenses are the result of 20-plus years of teaching experience at the K–8 level, and multiple collaborative opportunities with my colleagues as an elementary teacher librarian. They have consistently brought creativity and depth to my classroom and library projects. 

More than 1 in 4 U.S. public school teachers are missing the basic materials or staffing support needed to effectively do their jobs, significantly impacting workplace satisfaction, according to a new Gallup-Walton Family Foundation report. Teachers are most likely to report a shortage of “people resources,” with two-thirds saying they don’t have enough teaching assistants, aides or paraprofessionals. This “has a huge impact in the classroom in what teachers are able to do,” said Andrea Malek Ash, a senior research consultant at Gallup who led the survey. Even as teachers struggle to access fundamental resources, they still expressed a desire to improve their practices through professional growth opportunities.

April Wilson is a teacher of the visually impaired who works at schools across rural Illinois. A Braille training program Wilson enrolled in this fall was among dozens of special education-related programs for which the U.S. Department of Education has ended grant funding, , along with more than 30 other ongoing grants related to special education totaling nearly $30 million over the next three years. Nearly a third of those grants were promoting efforts to support K-12 students who have both vision and hearing impairments—among the most complex and rare of all the learning disabilities.

One of my daily challenges as a parent is getting my fourth grader to read for 30 minutes as part of her homework. It’s not because she struggles with her reading skills; she actually reads well-above grade level. Like many kids of her generation, though, my daughter has zero interest in picking up a book. Why would she, when she’s got an iPad offering her nonstop entertainment via videos expertly designed for her short attention span?  It’s not just my daughter who is exhibiting reading apathy; there has been a steady decline over the past 40 years. So, how did this happen? Was it the COVID-19 pandemic that forced students into virtual classrooms? Is it the screens? The shifts in education methods? Yes, yes and yes.

The National Book Foundation today announced the five finalists for the 2025 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. The list includes three novels in verse and three authors who were previously finalists for Young People’s Literature: Ibi Zoboi (2017), Kyle Lukoff (2021), and Amber McBride (2021). This year’s finalists are: Kyle Lukoff, A World Worth Saving; Amber McBride, The Leaving Room; Daniel Nayeri, The Teacher of Nomad Land: A World War II Story; Hannah V. Sawyerr, Truth Is; and Ibi Zoboi, (S)Kin.

A groundbreaking children’s television show is set to introduce a new character who is largely non-speaking and communicates with the help of a special speech tablet. “Carl the Collector,” which made history when it premiered last year with its focus on a cast of neurodiverse characters, will add Paulo, a new friend with autism who loves outer space. The character will be the first on a PBS Kids show to use an augmentative and alternative communication, or AAC, device.

Every year, Hispanic Heritage Month offers the United States a chance to honor the profound and varied contributions of Latino communities. We celebrate scientists like Ellen Ochoa, the first Latina woman in space, and activists like Dolores Huerta, who fought tirelessly for workers’ rights. We use this month to recognize the cultural richness that Spanish-speaking families bring to our communities, including everything from vibrant festivals to innovative businesses that strengthen our local economies. But there’s a paradox at play. While we spotlight Hispanic heritage in public spaces, many classrooms across the country require Spanish-speaking students to set aside the very heart of their cultural identity: their language.

A $4 billion-a-year initiative created to combat pandemic-related learning loss and expand the regular school day in California is also addressing another issue — recruiting teachers. The Expanded Learning Opportunities Program championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom supports an array of summer enrichment programs and after-school programs. They are typically run by nonprofit organizations on school sites in partnership with local school districts. Education leaders interviewed by EdSource say it is helping to address one of the most critical challenges facing California’s public schools: a persistent shortage of fully credentialed teachers, especially in high-demand areas such as math, special education and bilingual education.

Some people text, some e-mail, but there’s almost nothing better than getting an actual letter in the mail, especially if it’s a letter poem. “A letter poem is when you’re addressing someone else,” explains poet Joyce Sidman. “The way I write them, you’re starting out saying, ‘This is why I’m writing to you. This is why I’m intrigued by you. And these are the things I want to know about you.’” In the title poem of Sidman’s new children’s book, Dear Acorn, (Love, Oak), an oak tree writes a letter poem to an acorn: “I feel you there. A tickle at my twig tips. A plump promise against my rough bark.”

According to a new report from PEN America, public schools across the U.S. saw more than 6,800 book bans in the 2024-25 school year. A new documentary, “The Librarians,” examines the experiences of school librarians who’ve found themselves on the front lines of a battle against censorship. Film director Kim Snyder and librarian Audrey Wilson-Youngblood join John Yang to discuss.

While some schools are grouping readers by ability, our district has had success teaching students in their classroom cohorts. As reading scores remain a top concern for schools nationwide, many districts are experimenting with ability-based grouping in the early grades. The idea is to group students in multiple grade levels by their current reading level — not their grade level. While this may work for some schools, in our district, Rockwood School District in Missouri, we’ve chosen a different path. We keep students together in their class during whole-class instruction — regardless of ability level — and provide support or enrichment by creating flexible groups based on instructional needs within their grade level. We’re building skilled, confident readers not by separating them, but by growing them together.

Teachers can guide students to recognize and understand their emotions by grounding conversations in engaging books. Stories create a comfortable space where kids can see their own experiences reflected, talk about tricky topics, and practice empathy in a natural way. Over the years, I’ve gathered a handful of favorite titles that work well for elementary learners of all ages and reading abilities. I use these books to help children talk openly about feelings, friendships, and the small and big challenges they face every day.

We need not abandon small-group instruction but should employ it sparingly—and strategically. By doing so, we would increase the amount of instruction at least threefold, overnight. It would allow every child to spend much more time reading with purpose and building reading stamina; acquiring knowledge and vocabulary; writing and learning to write and participating in meaningful discussions—every day, all year. Joined with serious teacher training in effective whole-class instruction, we could reasonably expect to see unprecedented improvements in early-grade literacy acquisition, with tremendous subsequent benefits across all courses and grade levels. Best of all, research demonstrates that mostly whole-class instruction of purposeful reading, dialogue, and discussion would have its greatest impact on poor and minority students—the students who have demonstrated the greatest need for large infusions of the core elements of literacy.

Day-to-day operations for most schools will not be impacted by a short-term shutdown. That’s because most of K-12 education is funded through state and local budgets. Federal funding, while critical, only covers about 14% of elementary and secondary education. Grant-making activities and OCR investigations will cease during the shutdown, but school systems will still be able to draw down most funds.

After nearly two decades, the classic kids’ show Reading Rainbow is back — with a new host and a new digital format, but with the same mission of encouraging children to “take a look, it’s in a book.” The original show, which ran for 26 years on PBS with host LeVar Burton, won more than 250 awards, including 26 Emmys and a Peabody Award. It spurred a love of reading for generations of kids. The new host is library evangelist Mychal Threets, who became a social media star while working as a librarian in Solano County, Calif. 

n his first two months in office, President Donald Trump ordered the closing of the Education Department and fired half of its staff. The department’s research and statistics division, called the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), was particularly hard hit. About 90 percent of its staff lost their jobs and more than 100 federal contracts to conduct its primary activities were canceled. But now there are signs that the Trump administration is partially reversing course and wants the federal government to retain a role in generating education statistics and evidence for what works in classrooms — at least to some extent. 

IBBY (International Board on Books for Young People) and UNESCO have launched a global call for books to be included in their Collection of Remarkable Books for Young Readers in Indigenous and Endangered Languages. The aim of the Collection is to “protect linguistic diversity in the field of children’s literature”. The Collection will be presented at the 40th IBBY World Congress, which will take place August 6-9, 2026 in Ottawa, Canada. 

Across Westminster’s 24 kindergarten classrooms, paras give students more small group instruction and one-on-one attention than they would get with only a classroom teacher. The new literacy effort won’t generate quick results on state tests, district leaders say. That’s partly because today’s kindergartners won’t be in third grade — the year state testing starts — for three more years.

As Kate DiCamillo’s “Because of Winn-Dixie” celebrates a big milestone, Holly Goldberg Sloan’s “Finding Lost” echoes its themes.

Focusing on gross motor skills, spatial awareness, and curiosity can lay the foundation for joyful early writing.

A focus on reading fluency can help to bridge the gap between decoding and comprehension. What does good reading-fluency instruction look like? Research suggests that expert, overt instruction is often required. That doesn’t mean that teachers need to add dedicated reading-fluency lessons to the timetable. Little and often is sufficient for most children, either as part of whole-class practice or in one-to-one or small group interventions. Because reading fluency relies on children becoming accomplished across all three fluency components (accuracy, automaticity and prosody), a mix of strategies is required.

This month teacher Megan Singh will stand at the front of a small class at Enlace Academy. But her students won’t be children — they’ll be parents, grandparents and relatives of Enlace students, learning English together to better support their kids at home. Singh’s family literacy class is one way teachers at the west side Indianapolis charter school work to strengthen reading skills. “It’s systematic phonics instruction that is aligned to what we do here at Enlace in our program, so that parents can transfer those skills and teach them to their kids at home,” Singh said.

To make this guide, we surveyed more than a hundred authors, illustrators, librarians, booksellers, academics, and publishing pros. We ended up reading more than 200 books, for which we must fulsomely thank our local libraries. Our goal: to find the books that represent the best of these transformations, and to tell the story of an art form that responded to a front-page crisis with a new wave of inventive stories that respect the intelligence, playfulness, and widely differing experiences of young readers. With each entry, we’re suggesting a few other, similar picture books also admired by our nominators—as well as a collection of similar books for older kids, read-alikes suggested by the children’s lit experts at the public library in Arlington, Virginia. 

For preschool students, writing doesn’t begin with neat sentences or perfect spelling. It starts much earlier in moments that hold great meaning, deserve celebration, and set the stage for future success. Teachers can create a writing-rich environment that encourages young learners’ playful marks and inventive spelling.

Recent findings from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, found that one-third of American high school seniors lack basic reading skills. These rates, the lowest in more than three decades, continue with younger students, with about 40 percent of fourth graders, and a third of eighth graders, reading below the NAEP’s Basic Level. “These literacy rates are a real threat to the functioning of society,” said Catherine Snow, Harvard University’s John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Research Professor of Cognition and Education. “We have a science of reading,” Snow said. “But now, we need a science of teaching reading that is equally well-developed if we want to support teachers optimally to do what they are trying to do in first- through sixth-grade classrooms.”

New research shows that the skills needed for reading begin developing before a child is born, and that signs of reading challenges can emerge as early as 18 months old. “… children don’t start kindergarten with a clean slate,” said Nadine Gaab, an associate professor at the Harvard School of Education involved in the research. Learning to read “is a long process with many milestones that unfold over many years, and it starts primarily with oral language. Years of brain development lead up to the point where formal instruction puts it all together and enables them to read. The study, “Longitudinal Trajectories of Brain Development from Infancy to School Age and Their Relationship with Literacy Development,” is the first to track brain development from infancy to childhood focused literacy skills — a window into later academic attainment.     

When Yellowstone was designated the world’s first national park in 1872, early promoters and protectors of our national parks understood that education and public support would be key to ensuring their protection. As I wrote in my book The National Park Classroom, learning was so central to the success of the national park idea that they were considered to be “the single greatest university in the world” and focused on connecting with teachers and students almost immediately upon their establishment. Today, with more than 430 units in a system that encompasses every state and territory of the United States, this century-long effort has resulted in an immense repository of learning resources, created by knowledgeable experts and available free of charge to educators across the world—provided you know where to find them.

We know that Covid (and school closures) hurt achievement significantly between the time that our recent high school graduates were in eighth grade (2019) and in 12th grade (2023–24). But we also know that reading achievement for this cohort sputtered between the fourth and eighth grades between 2015 and 2019. What explains that? The obvious culprit is the rise of smartphones and social media during this period and its impact on motivation, sleep, and the time spent reading for fun. While others, including Harvard’s (and NAGB’s) Marty West, have come to the same conclusion, none of us can prove it.

Children’s picturebooks share the tales, narratives, and experiences of friends, families, and familiar places. They feature various genres and themes that invite exploration, wonder, and the circumspect to solve complex, challenging problems. Children’s picturebooks unlock both fictional settings and informational ecosystems and habitats. When quality children’s picturebooks—like those selected from the Newbery Award, the Caldecott Medal, or ILA’s Children’s Book Awards List—are coupled with powerful literacy practices such as think-turn-talk, asking questions, and written a-ha moments on sticky notes, we can capture inquisitiveness and shoulder-to-shoulder student conversations and use that to weave an awe-inspiring learning environment.