Sight vocabulary instruction as being less about memorizing a list of words, and more about learning how to recognize and remember words. Research shows that as students get better with decoding, remembering sight words becomes easier.

It makes sense to include simple morphology lessons as early as kindergarten, increasing the lessons as vocabulary and spelling become more complex. Gradually the proportion of word reading instruction should shift from phonology to morphology. 

Texts that are challenging and that represent a wide range of genres and content areas need to play much bigger roles in comprehension instruction. These texts expose students to rich content and vocabulary and can help build knowledge. 

Children’s author and poet Jennifer Ann Richter shares ideas for engaging kids in observing and learning about birds. Jennifer is the author of the middle grade novel Bird Nerd, a warm and gently told story of friendship.

Teaching reading comprehension means improving students’ abilities to read other texts on their own with greater understanding. A 2025 report looks at 66 studies to better understand recent trends in reading comprehension instruction.

Launa Hall’s travels take her to Morocco, a multilingual country that has a complicated language history. With one language used in formal education and others used in daily communication, Launa learns about the challenges and gifts multilingualism presents to developing readers.

Yes, teach print awareness. Let kids see the text you are reading (or writing) and bring their attention to it. Talk about those spaces between words, and don’t hesitate to point to the words that you are reading. But don’t spend a lot of time on fronts and backs of books or how to turn pages or whether numbers and letters are different.

How can diverse books help nurture children’s social and emotional development? Elementary teacher, children’s author, and advocate Vera Ahiyya gets us thinking about the far-reaching impacts.