Today’s Literacy Headlines

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. 

A statewide survey conducted by the Science of Reading Center at SUNY New Paltz finds that while most New York educators enthusiastically support the Science of Reading, few report using it as their primary approach to literacy instruction. “What we’ve learned is that their enthusiasm far outpaces the support structures in place to help them implement it effectively. If we want to turn that enthusiasm into improved outcomes for students, we need to invest in deeper, sustained professional learning and provide school and district leaders with the tools to guide change,” said Rosamund Else-Mitchell, Executive Director of the Science of Reading Center at SUNY New Paltz.

There are many sounds in English that don’t exist in Spanish, and vice versa. Take the sound the letter “z” makes in English, or the rolled “r” in Spanish. In the Southside independent school district in San Antonio, teachers highlight these differences for their Spanish-speaking students. It’s a key part of the school system’s approach to the “science of reading.” Teachers in the district—where about 30% of students are multilingual learners—give early elementary schoolers systematic phonics instruction, a foundational piece of early reading lessons. They teach beginning readers which letters represent which sounds and how to blend them together into words, whether they’re teaching in English, or in Spanish in the district’s dual-language program. Teachers also use their knowledge of language structure to help students make connections between English and Spanish—and to identify where children might need more help. “There’s no need to reteach the whole alphabet,” said Alejandra Ramirez, the district’s elementary reading and language arts coordinator. “If the first language of instruction is Spanish, then we [only] want to teach what doesn’t transfer.”

Some children’s books reach a level of popularity that transcends age. I saw it with Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, when suddenly I had first graders wanting to read about the hysterical exploits of a middle school slacker. And it has definitely happened with Dav Pilkey’s books. Kindergartners want Dog Man, Captain Underpants, Cat Kid Comic Club — and lots of tweens are right there with them. Here are twelve recommendations for fans of the Dog Man, Captain Underpants and Cat Kid Comic Club series.

What if improving children’s mental health — and life outcomes — could be done by teaching kids how their brains work? That’s a key idea behind the approach of teachers at Momentous School in Dallas, a private elementary school that serves 225 students, most of whom come from low-income families. Each day, educators present lessons on neuroscience and mindfulness, from the youngest learners all the way up to fifth graders.

Around the world, many teachers still believe longstanding—but long-debunked—myths about learning and cognition. Misunderstanding how students learn can lead teachers to misdiagnose learning problems and adopt less effective practices. The misconceptions often prove sticky because they stem from a misunderstanding of real research or seem to explain why some instructional practices work, but for the wrong reason.

By rethinking what a good day in the classroom looks and sounds like, new teachers can better support their students. If your classroom hums with the energy of students asking questions, debating ideas, and working together, you haven’t failed. You’ve succeeded in building a space where learning isn’t about being compliant, but about being alive and present.

Raised in a family of storytellers, Augusta Baker continued that tradition, imparting a love of books to readers of all ages. Baker told the story of Brer Rabbit and so many others that reflected the Black cultural experience to countless thousands of children during her thirty-seven-year tenure with the New York Public Library and inspired new generations after her retirement as the storyteller-in-residence at the University of South Carolina, Columbia. The university is now home to Baker’s books and papers, including a collection of writings, photographs, and children’s drawings that she collected during her path-breaking career.

A literacy-first mindset can turn around reading scores — and school culture, write two Indiana school administrators. Two years ago, a significant portion of our middle school students were reading well below grade level. Today, the number of 6th and 7th-graders reading on or above grade level has nearly doubled, and our 8th-grade scores are rising as well. Here’s how we did it — and why it matters for every school in the country.

A dyslexic professor at MIT and an incarcerated dyslexic high school drop out illustrate the importance of identifying why a child cannot read.

The beginning of the school year is the perfect time for preschool and primary grade educators to get in the habit of taking the class outside for experiential learning in nature. While you are establishing routines for yearlong learning, start a simple one that increases engagement, supports academic achievement, and reduces your prep time. Opportunities for outdoor learning don’t require special materials, and you can get started by dedicating just 10 minutes to the experience.

Approximately 1 in 5 children in the United States are estimated to be neurodivergent, representing a spectrum of learning and thinking differences such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and more. Research indicates that early intervention, initiated within the first three years of life, can significantly enhance outcomes for neurodivergent children. Children who receive individualized support are more likely to develop stronger language, problem-solving, and social skills. These gains not only help in the classroom but can also lead to higher self-confidence, better relationships and improved well-being into adulthood.

Free child care is coming to the Land of Enchantment this November. Last week, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and the New Mexico Early Childhood Education and Care Department announced that New Mexico will become the first state in the nation to offer universal child care to families as of Nov. 1. Over the past six years, New Mexico has become a trailblazer in child care infrastructure. In 2019, the state created its first Early Childhood Education and Care Department with a Cabinet-level secretary, showing a commitment to improving care and support for young children. 

Andrea Cáceres’ new children’s book, Hello, Tobi! is a celebration of Tobi’s walks in the parks when he first arrived in New York. In the book, Tobi encounters all kinds of families on his walk: tall families, short families. There are families that are quiet and others that like to talk or sing together. Some families look alike, and some families look different from one another. They all say hello to Tobi. Cáceres said it’s a simple idea, but for her, it’s deeply personal.

The National Assessment for Educational Progress, called NAEP or the Nation’s Report Card, has long been considered the gold standard for understanding how American students are doing. So bad headlines were inevitable last week when the long-delayed 2024 results for 12th graders in math and reading and for eighth graders in science were finally released. It is tempting to blame the long tail of the pandemic for the dismal scores. But folks who keep a close eye on NAEP had some provocative analysis. 

Given the muddled state of education research, policy, and practice, what can ambitious education leaders do to better support teachers and to deliver for today’s students? I recommend intentionally playing both the short and the long games. The short game is to embrace opportunities for quick and meaningful wins. These are the common-sense education initiatives that share three critical features: evidentiary support, low financial costs, and scalability. At the same time, identifying and embracing quick wins should not detract from the long game, which requires deeper, structural efforts to build the coherent system of research, policy, and practice our children deserve. When hiring and promoting faculty, universities should prioritize credible research that solves real problems in the field and teacher training that reflects these insights.

We polled our editors and writers about the best board, fabric and interactive books for the littlest ones in your life. These are our favorites.

The award-winning documentary explores contemporary book bans and attacks on librarians. In a room filled to the brim, attendees at the American Library Association’s (ALA) annual conference in Philadelphia this summer watched Kim A. Snyder’s documentary The Librarians. ALA attendees watching the show gasped and shouted numerous times throughout, as they saw fellow librarians whose lives have been turned upside down, thanks to the nearly five-year fight over books and education in America’s public schools and libraries.

Global illiteracy rates have increased by an average of 2.2% in 2024 and 2025, with 773 million people worldwide unable to read at all, according to a new report released by the World Literacy Foundation yesterday on International Literacy Day. The report revealed that 61% of children from low socioeconomic backgrounds do not own a single book, while two billion people globally struggle to read a simple sentence. The economic impact of illiteracy now costs the global economy an estimated $1.4 trillion annually, according to the report.

High school seniors had the worst reading scores since 1992 on a national test, a loss probably related to increases in screen time and the pandemic. Their math scores fell as well. It was a sign that, among other skills, they may not be able to determine the purpose of a political speech. In math, nearly half of the test takers scored below the basic level, meaning they may not have mastered skills like using percentages to solve real-world problems. Over the last decade, both adults and children began to replace reading time with screen time, social media and, increasingly, streaming video. And over the same period, the federal government and many states relaxed policies that were intended to hold schools and teachers accountable for student learning.

Different literacy tests evaluate different things. It may not be a question of gains vs. declines, but of decoding vs. comprehension. Both skills matter. And yet, many states have a disconnect between the policies they’re pursuing to improve reading outcomes and the tests they’re relying on to tell them if those policies are working.

From science to history to math, try these creative writing activities to help students process content and think deeply.

Most children see and talk about the world around them before they can read words, which makes their visual literacy—their ability to “read” pictures—an immediate, powerful, important tool. Early elementary school activities designed to improve visual literacy skills can easily be woven into existing academic blocks.  A kindergarten teacher runs through her favorite wordless picture books and other fun strategies for guiding students to ‘read’ images.

When we expand our understanding of research, we begin to see how young children already engage in research every day—through their questions, observations, play, and investigations. In this definition of research, a teacher is a facilitator of learning experiences who honors the inquiry process, rather than just a provider of facts. For children in pre-K through second grade, research can take the form of investigation, experimentation, or exploration. 

Memphis students with dyslexia will start receiving targeted reading support this school year through the district’s first universal intervention program in an effort to increase state test scores. Under a nearly $540,000 contract approved by the Memphis-Shelby County school board last month, an outside literacy company will boost support for nearly 5,000 students who show characteristics of dyslexia. But one local reading expert noted that many students struggle with comprehension, which needs intervention beyond foundational skills.

Turn to the first page of The Couch in the Yard and you tumble into a small town at sunset. A rusty car sits in a bed of flowers and a family readies for an adventure, securing a spare couch to its roof. They follow gravelly roads “up in the mountains, down through the hollow,” past “the stormed-down oaks, and the old scrap heap,” writes author Kate Hoefler. “It’s a story about a family’s nighttime ritual of loading up an old car and taking a long drive around the rural areas where they live,” says Hoefler about her new children’s book, which was inspired by her own drives with her children in Ohio’s Appalachia.

Today’s post continues a series in which educators share potential challenges that might exist in teaching English learners and how to overcome them. Professional learning, strong relationships, high expectations, and support and patience are key.

Much commentary has been offered on the literacy crisis plaguing the country. Massachusetts, often recognized as a leader in student achievement, has experienced the same challenge. Signs of the problem were clear in advance of the pandemic with NAEP fourth-grade reading proficiency rates falling from 50 percent to 45 percent between 2011 and 2019. The most recent 2024 NAEP results for fourth-grade reading in Massachusetts show the proficiency rate has fallen to 40 percent. Yet a recent $25 million state investment in early literacy high-dosage tutoring, spearheaded by Governor Healey, presents a new strategy to reverse the trend.

Echoing backward to the sixth century and forward to “The Lion King,” the play shows young people that stories are resilient against time and chaos.

By fourth grade, only 33 percent of U.S. students are considered proficient in reading, and each year it becomes harder to catch up. U.S. children are not alone in this struggle. Much like the science of reading laws proliferating across the U.S., New Zealand is implementing a national effort to improve literacy, requiring daily class time dedicated to reading and writing instruction. Among several approved options to meet this requirement, the Better Start Literacy Approach (BSLA) was developed by researchers from the University of Canterbury as a targeted, phonics-based teaching approach for five- to seven-year-olds.

Over the course of two generations, from 1984 to 2023, the proportion of 13-year-olds who said they “never or hardly ever” read for fun on their own time has nearly quadrupled, from just 8% to 31%. During that time, the percentage of middle-schoolers who read for fun “almost every day” has fallen by double digits. Doomscrolling. Poor literacy instruction. Overscheduling. These are some of the reasons cited for the generational decline in students reading for fun.

You know, if I ever go for that children’s literature PhD I’ve been hankering after, there are just so many different kinds of thesis topics to consider. Here’s one that I hope to high heaven someone has tried before: Bears and war in books for kids. … [There] are still bears out there that have yet to see their own stories represented. Into that gaping void comes Katherine Applegate. And believe me, when Applegate writes, people read. Her latest middle grade novel is Pocket Bear. With its roots in real history, don’t be fooled by its whimsical cover. There is some seriously good writing going on here.

The COVID crisis catapulted peripheral educational trends into the mainstream, not only creating the opportunity for new schools and spaces to emerge but, more importantly, permanently altering the way parents, teachers, and kids think about schooling and learning. The pre‑pandemic tilt toward homeschooling and microschooling has converged with five post‑pandemic trends that are profoundly reshaping American education for families and founders. Together, these trends are shifting the K–12 education sector from being an innovation laggard to an innovation leader.

According to a HarperCollins survey, most Gen Z parents don’t see reading to their child as fun. The importance of reading as a family can’t be underestimated. It does so much for kiddos, such as expanding their language skills, stimulating their brain activity, and teaching them about concepts and experiences. But the biggest, most wonderful part is what it does for the parent-child bond. Since reading can help relax, it can encourage both the adult and the child to slow down, listen to each other, and chill out. Here’s how to love reading to your kids.

Inspired by a funny request from his children years ago, Roker is finally about to take rainbows into children’s homes, as well as clouds, thunder, lightning, windstorms, hail and even a looming hurricane. These all play starring roles in “Weather Hunters,” a new animated television series he created, which premieres on Sept. 8. The first PBS Kids show devoted to meteorology — along with a healthy dose of earth science — it explains not only familiar occurrences but also what Roker called “gee whizzy” phenomena.

When it comes to reading, especially in special education, we celebrate small victories. A student decoding her first word. Another raising his hand to read aloud. A reluctant reader smiling as she opens a book. But those moments — joyful as they are — shouldn’t be rare. And they shouldn’t feel miraculous. They should be common. I’ve been a special education teacher for seven years. And I’ve seen firsthand what happens when we as teachers believe in students with disabilities — and give them structured, high-quality reading instruction. I’ve also seen what happens when we don’t. 

Today, New Orleans’ public school system looks almost nothing like it did before Katrina hit 20 years ago: All but one of the schools are charter schools, and they all enroll kids from across the city, rather than specific neighborhoods. People in New Orleans have strong opinions about whether the move to charters has been good or bad, but Doug Harris, an education researcher at Tulane University, says the data is hard to argue with. “Test scores, high school graduation rates, college-going, everything improved, and everything improved a lot,” he says. He attributes those improvements to the move to charters — and officials’ willingness to close schools that didn’t meet their standards.

When we talk about great science fiction/fantasy/magical-realism Newbery winners throughout history, I feel like all too often we forget about Tuck Everlasting. This is understandable. Even when it was first released it was a bit of an outlier. Its original cover was quiet, reflective, and downright mysterious. Its first page is deeply literary, only barely hinting at its contents. And like Newbery Award winner A Wrinkle in Time, it has never slotted neatly into a single genre. Is it historical fiction or science fiction? Fantasy or magical realism? A teen romance or a book about childhood? A tragedy or triumph? What we do know is that it is turning fifty this year! Macmillan is kicking everything off by re-releasing a special edition of the book with a new forward from New York Times bestselling author Gabrielle Zevin, an afterword from Natalie’s daughter Lucy, and never-before-seen bonus material that dives into the inspiration behind the book. And just to keep things interesting, they are also releasing a graphic novel adaptation (ALSO on sale today) of the book by creator Katharine Woodman-Maynard.

At least 10,000 more children in New Jersey’s poorest school districts are eligible for a landmark program offering free, high quality pre-K, but haven’t enrolled. By many measures, the targeted preschool program has been successful in boosting long-term academic gains for their students. The state ranks in the nation’s top 10 for child well-being and second for education after Massachusetts, based on fourth grade test scores and high school graduation rates. Supporters worry that the state’s recently established focus on expanding preschool throughout the state could draw attention and resources away from the early-learning program.

The research is clear: The more time students spend in school, the better. So, avoiding unnecessary absences is a key piece of academic recovery. Here are seven things we now know about chronic absenteeism and ways to successfully address it based on a collection of newly published research and surveys of parents, students, and educators. Many districts are partnering with families and community organizations to better understand why kids aren’t in class. As part of this work, leaders have learned their communities have unique and unexpected needs that they can often easily address.

There’s a new picture-book version of “Hansel and Gretel,” written by the novelist Stephen King, with illustrations by Maurice Sendak, the great children’s author and illustrator. Sendak died in 2012; the book uses his designs for a 1997 staging of Engelbert Humperdinck’s opera. Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen, who make picture books together and write a newsletter about the art form, discussed the book via text message.

By changing how they introduce writing activities and revision, teachers can inspire young students to see themselves as writers. When I started my career as a first-grade teacher, writing was the most daunting part of my day. My students could barely write a word, much less a story, and often burst into tears at the mention of writing. However, I can happily proclaim that writing is now my favorite thing to teach. Below are the biggest shifts in my instruction that led there.

For more than a decade, my community of Indian River County, Florida, has committed itself to ensuring that 90% of students read on grade level by the end of third grade. This year, we reached a milestone in this work, with one of our elementary schools exceeding this threshold, a feat achieved by only 3% of Florida schools. Our community’s commitment ensures that third graders get a lot of attention. But our work starts well before third grade. Early literacy begins with early childhood education. In our community, families of newborns get a custom lullaby to sing to their baby. We give families free books and learning kits so they have tools and resources in their homes. We create opportunities for community learning through our connection centers, events, playgroups and more.