Today’s Literacy Headlines

A prominent scholar critiqued the evidence for including children with disabilities in general education classrooms. Advocates, parents and teachers argued for inclusion, against inclusion and for some hybrid of the two. The director of education at the Learning Disabilities Association of America weighed in, as did the commissioner of special education research at the U.S. Department of Education. More than 160 people commented on one Reddit discussion about the story. Here’s a sampling of views I received or saw on social media. 

Deep, transferable learning depends on domain-specific knowledge, and thinking itself is inextricably linked to the content of thought. A robust foundation of knowledge is not merely the raw material for thought, it is the scaffolding that makes higher-order thinking possible. None of this is news, but neither is it dominant—yet—in education thought or practice. A new open access book Developing Curriculum for Deep Thinking: The Knowledge Revival dives deeply into these ideas and makes a case for knowledge-rich curriculum that embraces the role of disciplinary knowledge in education.

We are far more likely to use our hands to type or swipe than pick up a pen. But we lose something when handwriting disappears. We lose measurable cognitive skills, and we also lose the pleasure of using our hands and a writing implement in a process that for thousands of years has allowed humans to make our thoughts visible to one another. We lose the sensory experience of ink and paper and the visual pleasure of the handwritten word. We lose the ability to read the words of the dead.

When schools create a welcoming environment and celebrate linguistic diversity, they help foster global awareness, tolerance, and understanding. One way for schools to reaffirm the identities of their students—and impart a universal lesson that multilingualism is an asset to be preserved and leveraged—is to recognize International Mother Language Day, on February 21. A middle school teacher shares her favorite ways to celebrate linguistic diversity, both on International Mother Language Day and year-round.

A new study has found evidence of big gains in students’ reading ability from using one specific phonics program—and suggests that consistent implementation is key to getting the strongest results. The foundational-skills curriculum, UFLI Foundations, was created by researchers at the University of Florida Literacy Institute. When kindergarten and 1st grade teachers in one Florida district used the program for a year, their students grew at a much faster rate than similar students in other classrooms in the district that continued business-as-usual reading instruction. Teachers who followed the program more closely saw better results than those who didn’t teach lessons in the recommended sequence, or with all of the listed steps.

Findings from almost 450 studies demonstrate U.S. parents’ influence on student engagement, well-being and learning. When kids get older, the best thing parents can do to support their engagement and learning in school is “discussion and encouragement.” Translation: Talk to them about what they learn at school and what is happening in their lives, cheer them on in their academic pursuits and help them get through hard times. Meaningful discussions about their kids’ interests, experiences and challenges, their thoughts and feelings serve as the foundation for children’s love of learning, the fertile ground that breeds student motivation, curiosity and engagement. This, much more than direct homework assistance, helps teens grow and plays a crucial role in shaping their relationship with learning.

Students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) such as autism and Down syndrome are often left behind when it comes to literacy instruction – casualties of the misperception that at best, they could only read by learning to recognize common words by sight. But researchers are finding that students with IDD, like their peers without disabilities, can benefit from a more complex approach, including phonics, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. 

With more information than ever at our fingertips, there’s a sense of rush to take it all in and “skim.” Here’s what the experts say about our reading habits—and whether you should change them. According to experts, skimming—where you skip over words and sections to grasp the main idea of a text—is a common reading strategy. That’s totally fine, says Daniel Willingham, a psychologist at the University of Virginia—as long as skimming or scanning doesn’t get in the way of understanding. Experts often contrast skimming with “close” reading, when a reader connects new information to prior knowledge, asks questions, and develops a deeper understanding of the text (although the exact definition is contentious).

Being an independent learner means a student can carry more of a cognitive load in the class without so much reliance on their teacher. A lot of this comes from educators designing and creating innovative opportunities for students to learn language, continue to expand their neuroplasticity, and become more critical thinkers.

Since 2010, Jami Rhue has been a school librarian at Providence Englewood Charter School, a preK-8 school on the South Side of Chicago serving primarily Black and brown students who live in a community colloquially known as “Chiraq.” Though she didn’t initially see herself ever becoming a school librarian, Rhue has come to love the dynamism and variety of her job. She teaches concepts as wide-ranging as American Sign Language, critical thinking, typing, conducting research and writing in cursive. And she gets to work with children from pre-K all the way through eighth grade in any given week — a challenging but rewarding charge. “It’s the best-kept secret in education, to be a school librarian,” Rhue says with pride. “You get to interact with everybody. It’s a treat.”

In his long-running Village Voice comic strip and in his many plays and screenplays, he took delight in skewering politics, relationships and human nature. In the mid-1950s, Norton Juster, a neighbor of Mr. Feiffer’s in Brooklyn, invited him to illustrate a children’s book he was writing, “The Phantom Tollbooth.” An ingenious kaleidoscope of wordplay arguably akin in style to Lewis Carroll, the book, published in 1961, was an instant hit. Later in life he derived great pleasure from writing and drawing children’s books, some in collaboration with his daughter Kate, among them “The Man in the Ceiling” (1993), “Bark, George” (1999), “By the Side of the Road” (2002), “The Daddy Mountain” (2004) and “A Room With a Zoo” (2005). A 2010 reunion project with Mr. Juster, “The Odious Ogre,” was warmly reviewed.

The children’s publishing industry is uniting to support a fundraising initiative launched by four picture book authors in response to last week’s devastating wildfires in Los Angeles. The online auction will run from January 20 to 26, raising funds for the California Community Foundation’s Wildfire Relief Fund, the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation, the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, and the Animal Wellness Foundation’s Wildfire Relief Fund. Top auction items include a complete set of signed Diary of a Wimpy Kid books with an original sketch from creator Jeff Kinney and virtual school visits from Kate DiCamillo.

Science-based teaching can not only raise the level of student achievement overall but also make the system more equitable by narrowing gaps between high- and low-achievers. Unfortunately, this kind of teaching is happening in only a few small pockets in the United States, and many educators are either unfamiliar with the principles behind it or view them with skepticism or outright hostility due to their training. What can be done to overcome those obstacles and bring science-informed teaching to the millions of children who could benefit from it?

Miguel Cardona, the nation’s 12th education secretary, said he’s most proud of the work that focused on instruction and put more resources in schools. Despite the challenges wrought by the public health emergency, Cardona set high goals for student academic achievement, expansion of career pathways, increased access to student mental health services and more opportunities for multilingualism. During Cardona’s tenure, the U.S. Department of Education was also tasked with managing the largest historic one-time influx of federal funding provided by Congress to help schools recover from the pandemic. 

Teaching writing in the elementary grades comes with its own set of challenges: helping students plan their writing, organizing materials, providing appropriate drafting tools, differentiating instruction to a wide range of abilities, and ensuring that publishing is manageable for young learners. To better overcome these obstacles, I’ve developed a simple but effective solution: DIY booklets. These custom-made, stapled booklets compile all the materials students need to be supported through a writing project—graphic organizers, drafting pages, anchor charts, revision tools, and editing checklists—into one well-organized system.

On a cold winter morning, kindergartners gather on a rug in Holly Hins’ classroom at Woodbury’s Middleton Elementary School. Her students are learning to recognize sounds, decode words and learn phonetic patterns to let them read and spell with confidence. Called structured literacy, this method boasts decades of research showing it as the most effective way to teach kids to read. But it’s not the way Hins used to teach, and it’s not how she learned literacy instruction in college. Like elementary school teachers around Minnesota and the nation, she’s had to come to terms with a difficult reality: What she was doing wasn’t working, and she had to change.

Rural education often can seem like an afterthought to policymakers and scholars, who tend to design reforms aimed at urban and suburban areas, even though 20% of the nation’s students are educated in rural schools. This lack of rural research and focus has perpetuated many myths and misconceptions about rural education that overlook the strengths and opportunities for students who attend rural schools. As scholars who study rural education, we compiled a list of three facts about rural education accompanied by the myths that would help policymakers better design programs to support rural students.

To create Literary Hub’s inaugural list of the most anticipated children’s books of the year, we turned to the experts, asking authors and illustrators of books for young people to share which upcoming releases they’re most looking forward to reading. Here are their choices: a wonderfully eclectic range of books to keep readers of all ages and interests turning pages throughout the year.

Teachers can make small shifts in their classroom design to boost engagement, spark curiosity, and celebrate success. Motivation doesn’t have to be a battle of wills. By reducing friction, using visual cues, sparking curiosity, and celebrating progress, you can create a classroom environment where engagement and success feel natural. You’ll be amazed at how these seemingly minor changes can lead to big results—not just in your students’ motivation, but also in their confidence and enthusiasm for learning.

New estimates show that 61.8 million people around the globe have autism and that the developmental disability is among the most common health issues facing youth. As of 2021, researchers found that 1 in 127 people worldwide were on the spectrum, according to findings published recently in the journal The Lancet. Autism was twice as likely to affect males versus females and there was high prevalence among young people, with the condition ranking in the top 10 causes of non-fatal health burden for those under age 20, the study found.

To get a better sense of how SEL approaches are (or are not) working in K-12 schools, the EdWeek Research Center asked the following open-ended question in a December 2024 survey of teachers, principals, and district leaders: What approaches, if any, do you find are most effective in teaching SEL skills in your classroom, school, or district? The responses showed a wide range of opinions about what does or does not work, from outright opposition to the concept to questions about its impact on academic learning to a full embrace of SEL as a key tool to improve student learning.

Clearly, decoding is an important and fundamental reading skill. So why don’t we test for it in the United States? England does. Starting in 2012, the Brits started giving a phonics check to all six-year-olds. England’s phonics check is a light-touch intervention with relatively low stakes. But it has driven dramatic increases in student performance. Could the U.S. benefit from an England-style phonics check? Sure, we already have plenty of reading tests, some of which give educators a good sense of a student’s early literacy skills. But there are key differences in how American students are assessed, and we could learn some lessons from the Brits.

Governor Kim Reynolds and the Iowa Department of Education have announced a statewide investment of over $3.5 million to provide every first-grade student with decodable book packs to take home and keep, reinforcing classroom instruction. “In partnership with their classroom teachers, families across Iowa can use these evidence-based book packs to reinforce phonics and decoding skills with their children anytime, anywhere,” said Iowa Department of Education director McKenzie Snow. “These decodable books meet students where they are, supporting reading comprehension that unlocks a child’s lifetime of potential.”

Hooray! With the ALA Youth Media Awards on the near horizon (Monday, January 27th at 8 a.m. MT to be precise) it’s never been a better time to debate some possible winners of the Caldecott Award. Today, I hand over to Kate an unprecedented FOUR possible contenders (rather than my usual three)! Will she opt for the vibrant father-daughter vibes of My Daddy Is a Cowboy, the rainbow wry-wit of Touch the Sky, the luminous family-centric storytelling of Joyful Song, or the heartfelt sincerity of Home in a Lunchbox? Only this podcast can say for sure.

 A prominent professor of special education is about to ignite a fierce debate over a tenet of his field, that students with disabilities should be educated as much as possible alongside their peers in general education classrooms, a strategy known as inclusion. In a paper that reviews more than 50 years of research, Douglas Fuchs of Vanderbilt University and the American Institutes for Research along with two colleagues at both institutions, argues that the academic benefits of including students with disabilities in general education classrooms are not settled science despite the fact that numerous studies have found that children with disabilities learn more that way

Children must be able to read words like “a,” “and,” “not,” “now,” and “come,” said Kari Kurto, the national science of reading project director at the Reading League, an organization that promotes science-based reading instruction. It’s just that memorization isn’t the route to get there. Decades of research has shown that phonics instruction—showing children how letters represent sounds and blend together to form words—is the most effective way to teach beginning readers how to identify new words on the page. When children learn these phonics patterns, and practice reading words using them, those words get stored in their memory.

Word puzzles such as Wordle aren’t just entertaining—they’re powerful tools for building literacy skills in young learners. Here we’d like to provide additional information about Wordle as well as other recommended metalinguistic word puzzles that can be completed online and/or in board game format. There are four games offered by The New York Times that we recommend for use in the classroom with elementary-aged children.

When intentionally designed, digital environments offer a lot of opportunities for learning, engagement and automatizing skills. But for learning to read and for reading comprehension the most effective strategy is to have adult support. The appeal of digital technology is that it is often seen as being able to take the place of an adult; maybe one day, but we’re not there yet!

Thelma Ramsey-Bryant became principal of John L. Costley Middle School in East Orange, New Jersey, at the height of the COVID pandemic in 2020. But the global health crisis wasn’t the only hurdle she faced as she began her new role. Ramsey-Bryant quickly realized that many of her 8th graders needed help with reading fluency and comprehension. Ramsey-Bryant and her team have worked to make remedial reading tasks feel age-appropriate and to identify connections to student behavior.

There is a literacy crisis in Illinois, and it threatens the futures of Illinois’ children – but it can be fixed. Proven reforms used by other states can be promoted by Illinois lawmakers and embraced by local school districts. Illinois should focus efforts on investing in and improving literacy education for students in the first through third grades using these five literacy solutions based on proven reforms from Mississippi, Florida and Colorado.

Teaching children to read at an early age is not only fundamental, it’s also a major boost to their overall pediatric health care. According to an American Academy of  Pediatrics study, parents should begin reading to children at birth. Ready Readers Executive Director Angela Sears Spittal says early literacy directly connects to pediatric health care. Shared reading helps develop social and emotional development in toddlers, she said.

Soo-Young Hong, associate professor of child, youth and family studies, is leading a three-year project focused on strengthening rural early childhood educators’ competence and confidence in teaching science and engineering concepts to young children. Hong and her team aim to develop and test a practice-based professional development model for early childhood science education in center- and home-based early care and education settings serving children ages 3-5 in rural Nebraska. 

These formative assessment strategies for the early grades can save time as you, and your students, discover where they are in the learning process.

Diverse BookFinder (DBF) is an online resource designed for librarians, educators, parents, book creators, and publishers committed to finding and promoting children’s books featuring characters who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. Recently revamped with new branding and a more accessible, professional design, DBF includes features aimed at making it easier to discover inclusive literature. 

In early 2024, initial reports indicated that tutoring might not only help kids catch up academically after the pandemic but could also combat chronic absenteeism. More recent research, however, suggests that prediction may have been overly optimistic. Stanford University researchers have been studying Washington, D.C.’s $33 million investment in tutoring, which provided extra help to more than 5,000 of the district’s 100,000 students in 2022-23, the second year of a three-year tutoring initiative. When researchers looked at these students’ test scores, they found minimal to modest improvements in reading or math.

A longtime special education teacher passes along his step-by-step guide for all parts of the IEP process. The best IEPs are organized, transparent, and collaborative. 

Your imaginary audience has a note taped to them: “I can’t read. I can’t talk. I don’t care about stories, plots or characters. What do you have for me?” What we have for them, it turns out, are board books. When you look to capture the attention of a baby, your (or at least my) impulse is not to try to teach them anything or be clever. You know they’re not receiving those messages yet. You’re simply hoping to engage them minute to minute.

Families in Schools is one local organization that’s trying to boost literacy rates in Los Angeles. In an extensive report on the district’s literacy crisis published in February, the group called for LAUSD to adopt more approaches aligned with the science of reading, which the district is doing. And now, Families in Schools is working on more programs to boost literacy in LAUSD schools under an effort called ReadLA.

Developing students’ language skills can be more engaging with games that address vocabulary, grammar, speaking, listening, reading, and writing.

Middle school readers often have momentum from elementary school reading habits — like read-alouds, interactive reading in the classroom and making connections to real life through non-fiction project-based learning. But for high schoolers, developing reading stamina can be difficult because these practices are often discontinued sometime in middle school. However, librarians like Julia Torres have identified several strategies to get teens excited about reading.

Clearly, decoding is an important and fundamental reading skill. So why don’t we test for it in the United States? England does. Starting in 2012, the Brits started giving a phonics check to all 6-year-olds. At the end of their first year of school (equivalent to kindergarten), kids are given a list of 40 words to read out loud. Half of them are real words, like “chip,” and half are nonsense words, like “bep.” Teachers listen to each student read the words and then score them on how many they decode correctly. England’s phonics check is a light-touch intervention with relatively low stakes. But it has driven dramatic increases in student performance.

Comprehension needs to be differentiated from skill-based components of reading and treated as the complex behavior it is. Comprehension is not a skill or set of skills; rather, it is a complex multidimensional ability. In fact, reading comprehension is one of the most complex activities that we engage in on a regular basis, and our ability to do so is dependent upon a wide range of knowledge and skills. These include relevant background knowledge and reasoning abilities. Also, like listening comprehension, it is dependent on well-developed language abilities, including not only vocabulary knowledge but also an understanding of grammar and text-level structures (e.g., pronoun referencing and story structure). In addition, it is influenced by the nature of the text being read (e.g., its topic, complexity, and cohesion) and the purpose of reading (e.g., to study for a test or evaluate an opinion piece). Finally, it is acquired not in a few short years, but over one’s lifetime. 

What does it mean for a high school student to read well? The answer is multilayered. Teenage readers need a solid foundation, encompassing the ability to read fluently and understand grade-appropriate vocabulary. But they also rely on more nuanced skills. One of these is disciplinary literacy—the idea that experts in different disciplines, such as history, science, and literature, communicate their ideas in distinct ways.

Nevada has a unique opportunity to strengthen our foundation and transform the future for our children by making a bold commitment to early literacy and the expansion of early childhood programs. As the fifth largest school district in the country, only 39.3 percent of Clark County third graders are proficient in reading — a critical marker of long-term success. For students from low-income families and other marginalized communities, the numbers are even lower. Research shows that when students develop strong literacy skills by third grade, they are far more likely to succeed in school and beyond.

As everyone involved in American schooling continued to claw their way back to some semblance of normal in 2024, the year in education was anything but. One need look no further than Education Next’s annual round-up of the 20 most-read articles to observe some themes in what most concerned our readers about education in this evolving post-pandemic period. Lagging student achievement and the interventions that address it draw readers’ interest.

Tune in, talk more, take turns is good advice for anyone hoping to build their conversational skills. It is also the name of an enrichment program created by the University of Chicago’s TMW Center for Early Learning + Public Health to promote equity in children’s language acquisition and to reduce disparities in developmental outcomes for children from low-income families.

We’re down to the big final lists of the year now. If you’ve been following this series this month then you’ve seen me me talk about a lot of nonfiction picture books until now. This list takes the best of them, as well as a couple titles that don’t slot neatly into categories. I consider these the best of the best. The ones you cannot miss. See if you can find one you missed before now.

Jimmy Carter campaigned for president on a promise of establishing a federal department of education and, after some hedging on his part and multiple internal and external political battles, finally delivered on that pledge late in his one term in office. The creation of the Cabinet-level agency elevated the federal government’s role in education for decades to come. The achievement was arguably the high point on education in a long public career in which Carter served as a local school board member, a Georgia state legislator interested in school reform, and a governor who delivered an overhaul of his state’s education system.

Former President Jimmy Carter, who died Sunday at 100 years old, left behind a substantial impact on the American school system that has shaped the trajectory of education policy. Carter’s legacy influenced a wide range of educational developments, including providing support for higher education opportunities, as well as disadvantaged student groups and schools, both nationally and in the Peach State.

Philadelphia’s K-8 public school students are being taught a new literacy curriculum starting in the 2024-2025 school year. It’s called Expeditionary Learning, and it conforms with what literacy experts call the science of reading, which are research-based skills needed to become a strong reader. Mary Jean Tecce DeCarlo is a clinical professor of literacy studies at Drexel University and previously worked as an elementary school teacher for 18 years, teaching kids to read and write. She talked to The Conversation U.S. about the strengths and challenges of Philly’s new curriculum.

Video content—whether viewed on cellphones, laptops, or interactive whiteboards—has become so ubiquitous both inside and outside classrooms that educators may not stop to think about the effects on their students, particularly adolescents. While there’s much discussion around screen time, this particular offshoot of that issue is one educators should pay special attention to, recommends a recent report from the American Psychological Association.

New York City’s top financial watchdog is demanding the Education Department cancel plans to expand the use of a reading tutor powered by artificial intelligence until the agency adopts clearer policies on the technology in schools. The Maryland-based EPS Learning company would provide students with automated one-on-one tutoring in reading, screening for risk of dyslexia, and other assessments of students’ reading abilities.

This year’s top titles range from an alphabet book of quirky tunes to an authentic portrait of our nation. Many of this year’s best children’s books give a glimpse, in their own ways, into how other people live. Matt Lamothe and Jenny Volvovski’s All About U.S. quite literally steps into the homes and daily lives of 50 American kids, one from each state. Xin Li’s I Lived Inside a Whale brings readers into the quiet space of a young girl who finds the world too loud and busy. And Stephanie Seales’ My Daddy Is a Cowboy whisks them away on a sunrise horseback ride, so that they may imagine what it’s like to be an urban cowboy.

Project-based learning can inspire young students to ask questions about their surroundings and see where their curiosity takes them. “Through our curriculum project, we repeatedly see pre-K children making insightful connections between what they’re learning inside the classroom and what they’re discovering outside the classroom—whether it’s from seeing a house being constructed in their neighborhood or taking a family pet to the vet’s office.”

Meg Medina’s two-year term as the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature came to an end on December 12 at a celebration held in the Library of Congress’s Thomas Jefferson Building in Washington, D.C. The Ambassadorposition was an honor for many reasons, Medina told PW, especially because the role exists specifically to “elevate the needs, interests, and thoughts of children.” She added that this is crucial because most lifelong readers discover their reading pathway during childhood. She also appreciated the opportunity to represent the kid lit community.

As any designated bedtime book reader knows: novelty is key. If you are ready to depart from the well-trodden tried-and-true, here are 10 new picture books that NPR critics and staff loved in 2024. These are just a handful of the hundreds of books recommended in Books We Love, our annual year-end books guide.

Every December at The 74, we take a moment to spotlight our most read, shared and impactful education stories of the year. Many of America’s schools are still grappling with the academic struggles that followed the pandemic – as well as the end of federal relief funds, which expired this fall. Student enrollments have yet to recover and many districts are facing – or will soon face – tough decisions about closures. Meanwhile, some educators are testing innovative ways of teaching math, reading and science, hoping to gain back some of the academic ground lost since the COVID shutdowns. 

Parents in Massachusetts have sued the creators and publishers of some of the most popular balanced-literacy curricula on the market, saying the materials hindered their children’s ability to learn to read. But this new strategy in the “reading wars” has a longer history. It’s centered on one discrete teaching practice. Learn more in our latest explainer video.

An evidence-based approach to literacy instruction can help students close grade-level reading gaps and improve their confidence.

Phonemic awareness is a crucial component of any reader’s tool kit. It’s crucial in chunking and blending words, as well as building vocabulary. As it involves the ability to listen to and manipulate phonemes, the skill also bridges reading and writing. Playing with rhyme is a fun way to develop this skill, and it’s a common component of teaching in the younger grades.