This article on the science of reading originally appeared on Purdue University’s site and is reposted here with permission.

Key points:

• The science of reading refers to a vast body of research exploring how children learn to read
• States need to strengthen reading instruction policies
• How we can improve literacy through student engagement
• For more news on the science of reading, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching hub

Purdue University has begun work to improve the reading abilities of K-12 students in Indiana by strengthening teacher preparation using science-based methods. The work is funded in part by a $1.5 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. awarded to Purdue in August as part of Lilly Endowment’s Advancing the Science of Reading in Indiana initiative, which launched in 2022.

The science of reading refers to a vast body of research that explores how children learn to read and includes explicit, systematic and cumulative instruction methods focused on phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and writing and oral language. Purdue is one of 28 Indiana colleges and universities that received grants from Lilly Endowment to support efforts that integrate science of reading-aligned principles into teacher preparation programs.

From working with external consultants to diving deeper into the research on the science of reading to surveying former students about science of reading concepts, faculty across three campuses in the Purdue system — West Lafayette, Northwest and Fort Wayne — as well as two colleges, the College of Education and the College of Health and Human Sciences (HHS), are collaborating to bring together their diverse perspectives and elevate literacy teacher preparation at the university.

Six months in, the Purdue faculty have already made strides in their initial planning for revamping the curriculum. In early fall, the faculty gathered to review the results of a survey that would allow them to assess how prepared alumni and preservice teachers felt about literacy. Beyond the survey, the team met with external consultants and partnered with The Reading League Indiana to develop a common understanding of the science of reading and evaluate how this information would take shape in curriculum adjustments.

Purdue’s interdisciplinary approach is overseen by Jenna Rickus, vice provost for teaching and learning, and the grant is co-led by Christy Wessel Powell, associate professor of literacy education and the director of the Center for Literacy and Language Education and Research, and Catherine (Cammie) McBride, professor of human development and family science and HHS associate dean for research. Mary Ann Cahill, associate dean of professional programs and director of the School of Education and Counseling at Purdue Northwest, serves as the campus lead for Purdue Northwest, and Holly Hullinger-Sirken, clinical associate professor of elementary education, serves as the campus lead for Purdue Fort Wayne.

“We are grateful to Lilly Endowment and the state of Indiana for their proactive support for literacy education,” Wessel Powell said. “It’s vital to have these resources that we can put toward improving the ways that teachers are able to work with students and to know there is a long-term commitment toward these goals.”

The funds are being used toward faculty’s collaboration efforts to enrich their curriculum through science-based literacy methods in elementary education, special education and early childhood education. Their work spans five main goals:

• Refining science of reading content in the coursework of Purdue’s undergraduate education licensure programs.
• Creating stacked credentials for undergraduate and graduate students as well as offerings for current teachers.
• Creating an online repository of scientific research related to reading and writing.
• Providing professional development to faculty across all Purdue colleges, campuses and programs related to literacy.
• Making connections to state leadership by providing research-grounded resources on literacy.

Those working on the grant will continue to meet regularly in the spring to begin the process of restructuring and planning courses that will bolster the curriculum and better equip future teachers with an in-depth understanding of the science of reading. This spring, the team will also begin developing professional development workshops for all Purdue faculty involved in teaching reading and writing across Purdue campuses as well as begin to build an online repository of resources to which faculty can refer.

“Ultimately, what we hope is that the courses that are being used to train the teachers are better aligned with the science of reading and that the teachers make use of all their different skills-building to be better teachers and help the kids to read better,” McBride said.

Hullinger-Sirken noted that now is an important time to look at literacy, not only because the education landscape looks different since the COVID-19 pandemic but also to accommodate the various needs of Indiana children.

“There has been a lot of attribution to post-COVID, but we also know that we have a very diverse population of students in the state of Indiana, and we know that when it comes to literacy, there’s a lot of different components that play into how proficient a student can be with their literacy skills,” Hullinger-Sirken said. “It is our responsibility as educators and professionals to ensure that no student lacks any of those skills and that we are doing our due diligence to provide them with that. I think this grant comes at an opportune time because it gives us some of the resources and the attention to really focus on that specific goal.”

To meet the needs of Indiana’s diverse population, the grant has also brought in faculty such as associate professor Trish Morita-Mullaney, who specializes in English language learning, to focus on what is distinct about language and literacy learning for English language learners.

The grant’s 33 faculty members have experienced the cross-disciplinary element of Purdue’s work, which many noted has proved fruitful in allowing them to share their knowledge and pool resources.

“I really think the early childhood component; the developmental part; and the speech, language, and hearing sciences faculty and what they can contribute just make this a more inclusive and ultimately more useful approach to teacher training,” McBride said.

Grace Pigozzi, assistant professor of elementary and early literacy, explained it can be easy in higher education to get into a day-to-day routine and become siloed, so the opportunity of the grant allowed faculty to see the ways the Purdue University system works together and can make a difference in literacy education.

“For this opportunity to exist, we had to figure out who we were as an entity, and for me, that’s been the most amazing part,” Pigozzi said. “Now, knowing everyone and being able to have these funds to guide us as we’re doing this very difficult work is a kind of solace.”

As part of the grant, Chenell Loudermill, clinical professor in the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, organizes outside consultants to fulfill the professional development component. She noted this offers faculty on the grant the opportunity to not only learn from each other but also think outside the box by exploring expertise outside of the university in areas such as psychology, education, communication sciences and disorders, neuroscience, and more.

“The interdisciplinary approach taken by Purdue University is what is needed to move the teaching of reading and writing forward in Indiana,” Loudermill said.

The faculty shared that having Purdue contribute to Lilly’s initiative to advance the science of reading will allow the university to increase its impact on Indiana children and teachers. This funding by Lilly Endowment and Purdue’s work within it complement a statewide effort by the Indiana Department of Education to improve reading achievement in K-12 schools by helping current teachers implement science of reading-aligned principles in their classrooms.

“We’re a land-grant institution, so this is right in our wheelhouse,” Wessel Powell said. “I can see that we have so many opportunities for synergy and to expand how we affect the entire state.”

Key points:

• Making summer reading a year-round project is critical part of a learning strategy
• States need to strengthen reading instruction policies
• How we can improve literacy through student engagement
• For more news on literacy, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching hub

When I began teaching English as a second language (ESL), I had anywhere from seven to 13 different languages in my classroom because our district was in an area with a lot of recent immigration. It was an entry point for me to begin thinking about what a rich profession teaching is, along with how students develop their early reading skills, especially when they are learning multiple languages at once.

Today, I am the director of Literacy First, a program that the University of Texas launched almost 30 years ago with the mission of teaching students to read in the early grades. Literacy First fulfills its mission by offering a variety of support services, with a particular focus on achieving successful outcomes for growing readers, including one-to-one literacy interventions, teacher and staff training, instructional coaching, data-centered advising, and bilingual and culturally sustaining reading resources and interventions. One of the things I’ve learned a great deal about along the way is how to run an effective summer reading program for emergent bilingual students.

Here are three best practices that are effective regardless of the languages your students speak at home.

1. Encourage students to read at home by embracing their home language.

At Literacy First, we’ve always taught in Spanish. In fact, ours is the only program of its kind in the country that does early reading intervention and Tier II instruction in Spanish. We know from a couple decades of research that when children learn to read in their primary language, they are able to learn to read in additional languages more effectively.

If a teacher works on foundational skills such as phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, decoding, fluency, and comprehension in Spanish with a student who is more comfortable in that language, those skills will transfer, building better English results over time and offering that student all the amazing assets that come with being bilingual.

It’s also important to remember that the majority of emergent bilingual students in the United States are actually simultaneous language learners already. Many of them were born in the U.S., and all of them now live here in this English-oriented country. Most of them aren’t starting from zero, so I suggest a nuanced approach to thinking about the strengths students bring with them. What is their full linguistic repertoire? How can we assess and understand those strengths across languages to teach more effectively? Ultimately, it means understanding that bilingualism is the goal rather than English proficiency alone, and that means there is no hurry to jump to English without instruction in other languages. Students will make progress—even on their ability to read in English—as they develop their home language skills.

Students in Texas schools speak more than 120 languages, with 88 percent coming from a Spanish language background. Beyond formal summer school that teaches multilingual development and encourages families to nurture home languages, access to books in those languages or books that reflect students’ cultural backgrounds (such as those in the Capstone virtual library) can also support their reading development.  

2. Provide a constantly refreshed diet of new books.

When I worked at Austin Independent School District, we really latched onto this study from literacy intervention expert James Kim that found students in grade 6 could beat the summer slide by reading just five books over the summer. Today in Austin, there’s still a campaign telling students and families to “Beat the summer slide, take the 5 book dive,” as they distribute books all over the city. Even that small number of books has a big impact, especially for students who don’t have access to enrichment opportunities.

If you’re looking at younger students, however, they really need more like five books each week, and they need to be voraciously gobbling down those books. They need appropriate reading material at their fingertips in any way possible. Sixth graders need chunky chapter books, but younger kids are going to read books that are sometimes just two or three dozen pages long. I also see with my own younger children that when we get back from the library, only 10 of the 20 books we brought back are actually interesting to them, and sometimes only one is engaging enough to read with a parent and then later on their own. Younger children really need a constantly refreshed diet of new books.

Weekly trips to the library are a great way to give them new books, but not all parents have the time or opportunity to visit the library regularly. Digital libraries are also an excellent solution that doesn’t require anyone to leave the house. My kids’ school district offers PebbleGo, which they love because it has a huge selection of books and articles, and because it provides built-in support, such as word definitions and the ability to switch between English and Spanish.

3. Build in touchpoints to maintain momentum.

It’s important to build excitement about your summer reading program before school is out. No matter how well that goes, however, students’ reading momentum will slow down after the first few weeks of summer. To keep students and their families focused on reading, be sure to have a few touchpoints planned. Mailing out a few more books is a great option, and a book bus that travels around the district can be a fantastic way to bring members of the school community together during the summer. Teachers who have strong relationships—and shared language backgrounds—with their students can be instrumental in encouraging and inspiring them to read over the summer by sending planned messages or convening events. However, teachers’ efforts should be compensated and supplemented by school, district, and community support.  

When I was with Austin ISD, we partnered with a local bookstore that did some promotional work for us and offered discounts to families. We also partnered with the libraries within the district as well as a digital library provider to ensure students had a vast library at their fingertips, no matter where they were. The donations and other help from those partners were really instrumental in making our summer reading programs work.

Finally, many schools wait until spring to plan their summer reading program, but making it a year-round project is the most effective way to make sure your students have as many books as you can get into their hands, give yourself time to build excitement, check in to maintain momentum, and help all of your students avoid the summer slide, no matter what language they speak at home.

Key points:

• The science of reading is key in student achievement–here’s what it is
• Implementing the science of reading ‘one bite at a time’
• How to improve literacy through the science of reading
• For more news on the science of reading, see eSN’s Innovative Teaching hub

While high-quality literacy instruction has remained a cornerstone of education leaders’ priorities, this year, the science of reading has dominated classrooms and discussions around instructional strategies.

In short, according to the National Center on Improving Literacy, the science of reading is “research, over time, from multiple fields of study using methods that confirm and disconfirm theories on how children best learn to read.”

Teaching based on this research includes phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. It is not a specific program or intervention or phonics-based programs that drill phonics skills. And, as with all research, the science of reading is evolving–there is much more to be learned.

Here’s a look at some of the latest research, thoughts, and strategies, directly from classroom experts and industry veterans:

In districts across the country, educators are continuing to support students with post-pandemic learning recovery. Many students are still reading below the level appropriate for their grade–roughly one-third of fourth graders in the United States read at or below what’s considered the basic level. And unfortunately, even before the pandemic, reading achievement has been low over the past several decades. Here are 4 simple steps to help educators begin implementing the science of reading.

Conversations about the science of reading are happening primarily with elementary and early childhood educators. Those conversations are preventing further literacy injustice and disenfranchisement. But how are we addressing the ways that the system has failed our secondary students when they first learned to read? Here’s how a middle school ELA teacher is learning to support the students in her class who were passed along without receiving the literacy instruction they needed.

Maryland’s Prince George’s County Public Schools is supporting all K-3 teachers with science of reading resources and practices. Educators are diving into the integration of the science of reading and the teaching of science using digital resources. This work, which was started through conversations with the Mississippi Department of Education, was recently presented to the district’s PreK- 3 teachers. Prince George’s County K-3 teachers are exploring three instructional ideas: Using video segments to build understanding of science concepts, using science words for phonological awareness and phonics activities, and developing digital activities to integrate background knowledge building and literacy skills. Learn more about the district’s work.

Educators across the country have been discussing the science of reading and working to align their materials and practices to this research into how students learn to read. In the coming year, that broad trend will continue, with a shift to looking beyond knowledge building as schools, districts, and states begin improving capacity and creating systems aligned to the science of reading. Here, Kari Kurto, National Science of Reading Project Director at the Reading League, takes a look at a few specific predictions about what that could look like in 2024 for policymakers, schools and districts, educators, and publishers. At the state level, policymakers and decision-makers will continue to develop guidance around the science of reading and evidence-aligned practices. Many states that have recently begun this work start with initiatives focused on building knowledge, which is a great first step. In the new year, more administrators and other educators will focus not just on building knowledge and ensuring their materials are aligned to the science of reading, but they will go beyond to examine hiring practices, multi-tiered systems of support, assessments, the science of learning and implementation, and more. Learn more about how different stakeholders will champion the science of reading.

A new NCTQ report, State of the States: Five Policy Actions to Strengthen Implementation of the Science of Reading, highlights five key policy actions states should take to strengthen teachers’ reading instruction and examines the extent to which states focus on them. The five policy actions are: Setting specific, detailed reading standards for teacher prep programs; reviewing teacher prep programs to ensure they teach the science of reading; adopting a strong elementary reading licensure test, requiring districts to select a high-quality reading curriculum; and providing professional learning for teachers and ongoing support to sustain the implementation of the science of reading. Read more about how states can strengthen literacy instruction training.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.

Wisconsin is creating a new literacy office and hiring reading coaches. Ohio is dedicating millions to a curriculum overhaul. Indiana is requiring new teacher training.

Dozens of states are moving to align their teaching practices with the science of reading, a body of research on how children learn that emphasizes explicit phonics instruction alongside helping students build vocabulary and knowledge about the world. But a national policy group says many states still have significant work to do to ensure strong reading instruction.

A new report from the National Council on Teacher Quality finds that half of states don’t set specific standards telling teacher prep programs what future educators should know about teaching reading, and 28 states cede their authority over teacher prep programs to outside accrediting agencies with vague guidelines. A similar number of states administer weak licensure tests, the report said, creating uncertainty about how well prepared teachers are.

Meanwhile, just nine states require that districts adopt high-quality reading curriculum, NCTQ’s analysis found. Only three of those — South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia — require districts to choose curriculum from a state-approved list and cover the cost for districts.

NCTQ President Heather Peske hopes the report can serve as a roadmap for states looking to improve reading instruction.

“We cannot continue to accept the reading outcomes that we’ve been seeing,” she said.

Last year, NCTQ’s review of hundreds of teacher preparation programs found that thousands of educators graduate every year unprepared to teach children how to read, or trained using debunked literacy instruction strategies.

Some of the states that got good ratings from NCTQ in its new report have been at it for years. Mississippi passed its first reading law a decade ago. Colorado stepped up regulation of its teacher prep programs five years ago.

Other states NCTQ called out for their weak policies are just getting started. Illinois is poised to adopt a new literacy plan this year. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul just announced a major new literacy initiative. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy highlighted early literacy in his State of the State speech.

NCTQ makes five main recommendations. States should set well-defined standards for how teacher prep programs teach reading, review those programs thoroughly, use a rigorous licensing test that includes all components of how students learn to read, require that districts use high-quality curriculum, and provide ongoing training and support.

These types of policies often face pushback from school districts, universities, and teachers unions that see politicians infringing on educators’ authority and autonomy.

In Colorado, some school districts initially resisted state curriculum guidelines. Others struggled to find approved curriculum that felt culturally responsive. In Illinois, political opposition and lack of state funding means the new literacy plan has no teeth. In Ohio, Reading Recovery, a popular but increasingly disfavored reading program, is suing the state for banning certain methods of teaching.

NCTQ’s reports have also come in for criticism for their technical and narrow view of good teaching, for being incomplete, or for not relying on the right data — Peske said states had multiple opportunities to review the latest report and offer corrections. Other advocacy groups have laid out different priorities for reading instruction.

Melinda Person, president of the New York state teachers union, is excited the governor wants to invest $10 million in teacher training aligned with the science of reading. But she’s cautious about calls to get every district to adopt curriculum that meets a currently undetermined standard. She fears that state-approved lists could be influenced by lobbying or force districts to abandon good programs developed by local educators.

“Teaching a child to read is a very complex task,” Person said. “Don’t oversimplify this. It is brain science. Hundreds of studies are pointing us in this direction, but they are not pointing us to ‘buy this curriculum.’”

Data lacking on curriculum in school districts

Twelve states received “strong” ratings overall in NCTQ’s report, including Colorado, Florida, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.

NCTQ categorized 16 states as having “weak” reading policies, including Illinois, New York, and New Jersey, while three states — Maine, Montana, and South Dakota — were marked as “unacceptable” because they had few or no state-level reading policies.

An analysis by Education Week found that 32 states and the District of Columbia have adopted new reading laws since 2013, but NCTQ found many of these states still had major gaps in teacher preparation or curriculum.

States with strong oversight of teacher prep programs lost points for having weak standards, and states with strong standards lost points for weak oversight. More than half of states, NCTQ found, review the syllabi of teacher preparation programs, but just 10 include literacy experts in the process.

Most teacher prep programs don’t devote at least two instructional hours to how to teach English learners to read in an unfamiliar language or to supporting struggling readers, NCTQ’s analysis found. Even fewer programs provide opportunities for student teachers to practice those skills.

Meanwhile, 21 states don’t collect any data on the curriculum their districts use, nearly half offer no guidance on picking curriculums that serve English learners, and a third offer no guidance on how to use curriculum to support struggling readers. Even in states that value local control, Peske said states have a duty to offer guidance, and many administrators likely would welcome it.

NCTQ’s analysis does not address third-grade retention policies that have been adopted in 13 states. Nor did NCTQ’s report address universal screeners that look for warning signs of reading difficulties such as dyslexia.

Advocacy groups like JerseyCAN have made universal screeners and parental notification key parts of their platform. “Parents cannot ring the alarm or participate in this goal effectively if they don’t know where their children stand,” Executive Director Paula White said.

Linking new policies to test scores can be challenging. Mississippi students’ growth on national exams has been touted as a “miracle.” But students there still have lower test scores than students in some more affluent states with weaker policies.

New York and New Jersey governors elevate literacy

New Jersey received a weak rating from NCTQ due to inadequate standards for teacher prep programs, no requirement that elementary teachers have reading training, and no curriculum requirements or even guidelines for local districts.

White, the JerseyCAN leader, said she hopes the state is turning the corner after years in which people told her “we got this, we’ll do it on our own,” or “We’re already doing what you want us to do, so why should we expend energy on state policy or legislation?”

In neighboring New York, NCTQ gave the state some credit for strong state oversight of teacher prep. But the state lost points because reading standards aren’t specific enough. Nor does New York require districts to adopt high-quality curriculum — its powers are limited under state law.

Hochul’s push on literacy comes as New York City is months into its own reading overhaul, with schools required to adopt one of three approved curriculums. It’s not clear yet how the state might encourage districts using low-quality curriculum to make different choices. State officials are also developing a plan to incorporate more science of reading into teacher prep programs.

Judy Boksner, a literacy coach and reading specialist at P.S. 28 in the Bronx, recalls the “aha moment” she experienced after getting trained in the science of reading on her own time. She said the approach helps more students more reliably than the methods she was previously trained to use, but it can be slow at first.

Curriculum and training requirements are good, Boksner said, but schools still need ongoing support, including literacy coaches.

“In all these curriculums, they have tasks in them. We don’t know if they’ve all been tested in the field. Some of the tasks are so hard for kids, and if you don’t train your teachers well, kids will still struggle,” Boksner said.

Illinois on verge of adopting new literacy plan

In giving Illinois a “weak” rating, NCTQ found the state has set good standards for teacher preparation programs, but called for more oversight to ensure programs are following through. And NCTQ labeled as “unacceptable” Illinois’ lack of any guidance around high quality curriculum.

The report comes just as Illinois is finalizing a literacy plan to help school districts revamp how students are taught to read. After a two-year legislative fight, advocates successfully passed a bill last year that requires the Illinois State Board of Education to write a literacy plan, create a rubric for school districts to grade curriculum, and offer professional development to teachers.

But the new law does not mandate school districts adopt a phonics-based approach that’s key to the science of reading. Other ideas, such as reading grants and an approved curriculum list, didn’t survive the political process.

“There are really no mandates on school districts,” said Stand for Children Illinois Executive Director Jessica Handy, a literacy advocate who helped write the 2023 bill and negotiated with lawmakers. “I think reading grants would be one way to get buy-in from school districts and get more people thinking about how they can accelerate their progress to improve literacy curriculum.”

Education advocates hope to see $45 million from $550 million in new state funding go towards regional literacy coaches and state board staff that work just on literacy — and Stand is working on a new bill that Handy hopes strengthens the literacy plan.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

Related:
How we can improve literacy through student engagement
The science of reading, beyond phonics
For more news on literacy, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching hub

Key points:

• Literacy advocates can provide students with this foundation for a lifetime of learning
• States need to strengthen reading instruction policies
• How we can improve literacy through student engagement
• For more news on literacy, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching page

The most effective advocacy programs often begin with a personal passion to make a difference.

When former National School Library Program of the Year librarian Marge Cox retired, she began volunteering at Youth Haven, a shelter designed to help abused and neglected children and teens in Southwest Florida. “I got involved with Youth Haven after a former Collier County Public Schools employee contacted me and said Youth Haven needed my skill set,” Cox told me. “They had boxes of books that had been donated to them and wanted to create a library. I had retired at the end of the 2020 school year and had been praying for God to show me my next adventure.”

Youth Haven had boxes of donated books but no centralized collection. So, Cox began organizing the books into a library and established a Makerspace for the students at Youth Haven. “The youth who are there have had a difficult life and Youth Haven provides a safe environment for them. I appreciate that I can play a small part in their lives, by helping them have easy access to books and activities. Books and youth are my passion, because I believe literate people are better citizens, happier individuals, and more of an asset to their communities.”

Speaking of committing retirement to getting books in the hands of learners of all ages, former Wisconsin school librarian Susy Siel has built 12 libraries on Eleuthera Island in The Bahamas. Siel visited the out islands with her parents for decades and discovered first-hand the need, like in many rural communities, for high-quality libraries stocked with current books and new computers. 

So, Siel took matters into her own hands and created Freedom to Read, Inc. “Our mission is to change lives through free access to literacy,” Siel said. “I have witnessed the power that the availability of books and computers/internet have on people’s lives. By advocating for literacy here in The Bahamas we can foster a better sense of community, while simultaneously assisting individuals to reach their goals… whether personal or in the workforce. When people can seek and find information, they are empowered. Their voice is elevated. Their ability to make changes in policy, law and their own lives is enhanced.”

Whether it’s individuals with a passion project or organizations that exist exclusively to help connect students with books, it takes a village to advocate for literacy. Recently, Follett Content Solutions partnered with Amazon in the Community to deliver 5,500 books to students in the greater Seattle area. And in conjunction with PageAhead, another Seattle-based children’s literacy program, we’ve delivered as many as 150,000 books to kids each year for the past few years, many from low-income families, to help promote summer reading and build home libraries.

Between Seattle, Naples, and the Bahamas, there are advocacy villages everywhere, filled with educators like Hannah Irion-Frake, a third-grade teacher in Pennsylvania who spends her career advocating for and creating readers. “I provide training for teachers in my district in science-based literacy practices,” Irion-Frake said. “Teachers with deep knowledge about best practices for literacy are better equipped to make a difference for their students. And there is no greater accomplishment, in my opinion, than teaching a child to read.”

Teaching students to read happens in the classroom and library every day. It happens through community and business partnerships. It happens through full time jobs or second acts in life. 

In 2010, when I came to work for the family business for my second career act, I put on a new hat as the president of the Follett Educational Foundation. While the Foundation still issues scholarships, this year we are piloting a program to help Native American students in the Chicagoland area build their home libraries. The National School Board Association reports that population of students performed two to three grade levels below their white peers in reading and math.

This issue is close to the heart of 4^th generation Follett family member Steve Waichler, whose family adopted Native children and made a significant contribution to the Foundation with a focus on improving literacy outcomes for Native American students. Waichler says, “Personally, I think of this a memorial fund for my sister, Leslie, who died when she was two years old. She was the first of my Native Sisters, and we wouldn’t have the large, blended family we have today, if she hadn’t died. We want this gift to honor the Native half of our family.”

Literacy advocacy can come in many shapes and sizes. Yolanda Williams, a sixth-grade teacher in Atlanta, Georgia says, “I advocate literacy for every student in my program by creating literacy lessons that encompass strong phonics instruction, vocabulary, independent reading, teacher-led small groups, and differentiated instruction. Literacy is not coloring, worksheets, and workbooks. Literacy is an engaging and a hands-on experience.” 

As community members and literacy advocates, we all can provide students with this foundation for a lifetime of learning.

Cox says, “My parents were educators and I remembered they had used their retirement to continue to positively impact the community. I believe educators help society and I wanted to do something in my retirement that made a difference for others. I just didn’t know what that would look like.”

What does it look like for you?

As for the Follett Educational Foundation’s Native American student literacy program, we too are still figuring out exactly what that’s going to look like. We have big dreams of building school libraries in tribal schools. But we’re starting with a smaller project this spring, where we will deliver 120 backpacks of age-appropriate Native language books to kindergarten through 12^th grade students in Chicago.  

Established in the 1960s, the Follett Educational Foundation has issued millions of dollars in college scholarships to the students of Follett team members. Now that the Follett family no longer owns the businesses, the trustees of the Foundation are transitioning the Foundation to its next act … literacy… which is wholly in line with the legacy of our family business. While the Foundation still issues scholarships in memory of the founding four Follett brothers, this year we are piloting a program to help Native American students in the Chicagoland area build their home libraries.

The Nation’s Report Card began to sound the alarm about the academic underperformance of American Indian and Alaska Native students in 1994. Today, the National School Board Association reports that population of students performed two to three grade levels below their white peers in reading and math. This issue is close to the heart of 4^th generation Follett family member Steve Waichler, whose family adopted Native children and made a significant contribution to the Foundation with a focus on improving literacy outcomes for Native American students. Waichler says, “Personally, I think of this a memorial fund for my sister, Leslie, who died when she was 2 years old. She was the first of my Native Sisters, and we wouldn’t have the large, blended family we have today, if she hadn’t died. We want this gift to honor the Native half of our family as well as our Follett legacy.”

The most effective advocacy programs often begin with a personal story like the Waichler family’s inspiration. When former National School Library Program of the Year librarian Marge Cox retired, she began volunteering at Youth Haven, a shelter designed to help abused and neglected children and teens in Southwest Florida. “I got involved with Youth Haven after a former Collier County Public Schools employee contacted me and said Youth Haven needed my skill set,” Cox told me. “They had boxes of books that had been donated to them and wanted to create a library. I had retired at the end of the 2020 school year and had been praying for God to show me my next adventure.”

Youth Haven had boxes of donated books but no centralized collection. So, Cox began organizing the books into a library and established a Maker Space for the students at Youth Haven. “The youth who are there have had a difficult life and Youth Haven provides a safe environment for them. I appreciate that I can play a small part in their lives, by helping them have easy access to books and activities. Books and youth are my passion, because I believe literate people are better citizens, happier individuals, and more of an asset to their communities.”

Speaking of committing retirement to getting books in the hands of learners of all ages, former Wisconsin school librarian Susy Siel has built twelve libraries on Eleuthera Island in The Bahamas. Siel visited the out islands with her parents for decades and discovered first-hand the need, like in many rural communities, for quality libraries stocked with current books and new computers. 

So, Siel took matters into her own hands and created Freedom to Read, Inc. “Our mission is to change lives through free access to literacy,” Siel said. “I have witnessed the power that the availability of books and computers/Internet have on people’s lives. By advocating for literacy here in The Bahamas we can foster a better sense of community, while simultaneously assisting individuals to reach their goals… whether personal or in the workforce. When people can seek and find information, they are empowered. Their voice is elevated. Their ability to make changes in policy, law and their own lives is enhanced.”

Whether it’s individuals with a passion project or organizations that exist exclusively to help connect students with books, it takes a village. Recently, Follett Content Solutions partnered with Amazon in the Community to deliver 5,500 books to students in the greater Seattle area. And in conjunction with PageAhead, another Seattle-based children’s literacy program, we’ve delivered as many as 150,000 books to kids each year for the past few years, many from low-income families, to help promote summer reading and build home libraries.

Between Seattle, Naples, and the Bahamas there are teachers like Hannah Irion-Frake, a third-grade teacher in Pennsylvania who lives her passion project day in and day out, spending her career advocating for and creating readers. “I provide training for teachers in my district in science-based literacy practices,” Irion-Frake said. “Teachers with deep knowledge about best practices for literacy are better equipped to make a difference for their students. And there is no greater accomplishment, in my opinion, than teaching a child to read.”

Literacy advocacy can come in many shapes and sizes. Yolanda Williams, a sixth-grade teacher in Atlanta, Georgia says, “I advocate literacy for every student in my program by creating literacy lessons that encompass strong phonics instruction, vocabulary, independent reading, teacher-led small groups, and differentiated instruction. Literacy is not coloring, worksheets, and workbooks. Literacy is an engaging and hands-on experience.” 

Teaching students to read happens in the classroom and library every day. It happens through community and business partnerships. It happens through full time jobs or second acts in life. 

Cox says, “My parents were educators and I remembered they had used their retirement to continue to positively impact the community. I believe educators help society and I wanted to do something in my retirement that made a difference for others. I just didn’t know what that would look like.”

As for the Follett Educational Foundation’s Native American student literacy program, we too are still figuring out exactly what that’s going to look like. We have big dreams of building school libraries in tribal schools. But we’re starting with a smaller project this spring, where we will deliver 120 backpacks of age-appropriate Native language books to kindergarten through 12^th grade students in Chicago.  

As important as it is to connect a student with a book, giving them the opportunity to choose what they are going to read is even more powerful. And as educators, each of you can help your students discover the next book they will fall in love with. As community members and literacy advocates, we too can provide students with this foundation for a lifetime of learning.

What’s your next act?

Key points:

• States should take steps to strengthen teachers’ reading instruction
• See article: The science of reading, beyond phonics
• See article: What’s next for literacy learning?
• For more news on reading policy, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching page

New data and analysis from the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) show that while many states seek to improve literacy outcomes for students, they focus too little on a key component to strong implementation and sustainability: effective teachers.

The new NCTQ report, State of the States: Five Policy Actions to Strengthen Implementation of the Science of Reading, highlights five key policy actions states should take to strengthen teachers’ reading instruction and examines the extent to which states focus on them. The five policy actions are:

1. Setting specific, detailed reading standards for teacher prep programs.
2. Reviewing teacher prep programs to ensure they teach the science of reading.
3. Adopting a strong elementary reading licensure test.
4. Requiring districts to select a high-quality reading curriculum.
5. Providing professional learning for teachers and ongoing support to sustain the implementation of the science of reading.

Given that there are 1.3 million children who enter fourth grade each year unable to read at a basic level (nearly 40 percent of all fourth graders) and that this number climbs even higher for students of color, those with learning differences, and those who grow up in low-income households, states have a responsibility to ensure teachers are well-prepared to support students to learn to read. In fact, estimates suggest that with effective reading instruction, more than 90 percent of students would learn to read—meaning that every year nearly 1 million additional students would enter fourth grade as skilled readers. However, it is only when state leaders implement a literacy strategy that prioritizes teacher effectiveness that they will achieve a teacher workforce that can strengthen student literacy year after year.

“Helping all children learn to read is possible when you have teachers who’ve been prepared in the science of reading,” said Dr. Heather Peske, NCTQ President. “Much like an orchestra needs each section of instruments to come together to successfully create music, states need to implement multiple teacher-focused reading policies that work together to improve student outcomes.”

Across the nation, NCTQ found that:

• Nineteen states are taking very little action—if any—in the five policy areas. Three states are categorized as unacceptable, meaning they have few or no policies in place in most of the five policy areas: Maine, Montana, and South Dakota. Sixteen states are categorized as weak, meaning they have only a few policies in place in some of the five policy areas, and nothing in the other areas: Alaska, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
• Half of states (26) do not provide specific guidelines to teacher prep programs about what they should teach aspiring teachers in reading.
• Two-thirds of states (30) leave it to outside accreditors to approve how teachers are prepared in reading instruction, abdicating their responsibility and, ultimately, giving this power to entities that don’t have the time, directive, or expertise to determine if the program prepares elementary teachers aligned to scientifically based reading instruction.
• More than half of states (28) use weak licensure tests that don’t tell you whether teachers understand the core components of reading, giving those teachers and the schools that hire them false assurances that teachers are prepared to teach reading.
• While states spend roughly 1 billion dollars on reading curricula, only nine states require districts to select a high-quality reading curriculum. This matters because previous research external to NCTQ shows some of the most popular reading curricula being used by districts are not aligned with 50 years of research that shows how kids best learn to read.
• While more than half of states require some type of professional learning on the science of reading for elementary teachers and allocate funds for it, over half a million elementary teachers may be left without any professional learning in states that don’t require research-aligned professional learning.

“Why do we see staggering numbers of children, especially children of color and from low-income backgrounds, without fundamental literacy skills? Because in many districts and schools nationwide, outdated teaching methods and curricula that have been proven ineffective, and even harmful, are still being used,” said Denise
Forte, The Education Trust President and CEO. “This NCTQ report calls upon state leaders to double-down on their efforts to support teachers to change reading outcomes for students with five clear actions they can take now.”

“The Maryland State Department of Education applauds the NCTQ for its research into state policies and practices supporting reading instruction aligned with scientific research,” said Dr. Carey Wright, Maryland’s Interim State Superintendent. “The path to ensuring a future where every teacher is equipped with the knowledge and skills to effectively teach reading requires a comprehensive set of policies that hold departments of education, educator preparation programs, and districts responsible for promoting and delivering evidence-based reading instruction grounded in science. Only then will all students, especially those who have been historically underserved, have the opportunity to receive the essential foundation needed to succeed in college or career, and more importantly, life. This is the time for state education leaders to intensify the call for action.”

In addition to the report, NCTQ produced individual state profiles that provide a snapshot of the reading policy landscape and recommendations for each state and a State Reading Policy Action Guide that identifies concrete steps states can take to strengthen reading instruction and examples of states that are doing it well.

This press release originally appeared online.

Each year, we share our 10 most-read stories. Not surprisingly, many of this year’s Top 10 focused on equity, edtech innovation, immersive learning, and the science of reading. This year’s 2nd most-read story focuses on literacy and student engagement.

In this episode of Innovations in Education, Madeleine Mortimore, Global Education Innovation and Research Lead for Logitech details how classroom technologies, if used properly, can increase student engagement and ultimately test scores.

Related:
4 simple ways to put the science of reading into practice
5 edtech resources that support literacy in elementary school
For more news on literacy, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching page

Key points:

• When it comes to reading skills, we should provide students with explicit literacy instruction and foundational skills like decoding and building content knowledge
• See article: Excite, expand, equitize: Using data to support reading
• See article: 4 simple ways to put the science of reading into practice
• For more news on reading strategies, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching page

Schools across the country have been shifting their reading strategies to incorporate knowledge and best practices they have learned from the science of reading. More than 30 states have written legislation that requires schools to utilize scientifically researched instructional strategies.

The largest change most states will see as a result is a dramatic increase in explicit phonics instruction. As a result, an increasing number of students will be able to access grade-level texts.

I predict this will be reflected in summative and benchmark scores. However, picking words off the page is only a portion of what is measured in benchmark assessments. If we wish to see continued success, we will need to use everything the science of reading has taught us and provide students with a healthy diet of explicit literacy instruction that includes foundational skills like decoding, in addition to building content knowledge and higher-order comprehension strategies.

While I do believe that there will be some adjustment to find the right mix, I don’t think improved literacy results from aligning instruction to the science of reading will be cyclical or short-lived. Schools are on the right track; they just need to find the correct balance between instruction and reading experiences.

Combining phonics and background knowledge

The science of reading is not a program, curriculum, nor something you can purchase. It’s a collection of scientific research from a variety of fields—including cognitive psychology, education, and neuroscience—that helps us understand how we acquire written language.

Instruction aligned to the science of reading is sequential and explicit. Currently, it may seem like the science of reading is focused solely on phonics. Perhaps that is an over-correction in response to several popular reading programs that place too small an emphasis on phonics. However, the science of reading includes a lot of research about the importance of skills like background knowledge, vocabulary, and concepts of print.

In fact, background knowledge can even make phonics instruction more effective. If a student is spending 80 percent of their mental energy trying to figure out what the words on the page mean, they only have 20 percent left to decode. The more background knowledge they have, the more vocabulary they bring to bear on the assignment, and the more they are able to focus on applying their phonics skills.

Background knowledge and vocabulary also allow students to self-check as they read. If a student decodes the word “cake,” but they’ve never encountered it before, they have no way to know if they actually applied their decoding skills correctly. If they were at a birthday party a few days ago and know what cake is, they have immediate confirmation that they got the word correct when they decode it.

The need for authentic texts

To be truly skilled readers, students need diverse experiences and a varied vocabulary. I live in Connecticut, and if a teacher here asked students to read about college football on an assessment, they wouldn’t do as well as students from Texas, where college football is a lot more relevant. Reading a variety of texts on subjects they are already interested in will help students expand their background knowledge and vocabulary naturally over time by adding to what they already know and get excited about.

Instructional material for student reading is often very didactic. Its purpose is to be used by a teacher to give examples of different elements of writing, and it’s usually highly patterned to make those elements, like a main idea or a conclusion, relatively easy to pick out. Text in the real world isn’t structured the same way. It’s messier, and not laid out in the same way every time. To improve their reading and comprehension skills, students need access to authentic texts whose main purpose is to entertain and inform.

Libraries that are designed to be enjoyed—whether they’re traditional libraries, digital libraries, or classroom libraries—motivate students to read. When I was in school, one of my teachers flagged me as a reluctant, struggling reader. Every time the moment came to pick up our copy of Island of the Blue Dolphins, I appeared, at best, distracted, and at worst, like I would much rather be anywhere else. However, when we started the next book, a fantasy novel, I finished it independently that same day. Access to books students enjoy can be the difference between them doing everything in their power to avoid reading and them sitting at their desks during recess because they can’t put their books down.

Ideally, a teacher provides explicit instruction, models the new skill, does it with their students, and then sends students off to practice the new skill in something similar to a real-world context. If students don’t have engaging material to read, they’ll only practice their new reading skills when they’re told to, and that’s not enough.

Reading as a steppingstone to higher literacy skills

A good library will offer students not just texts they’re eager to read, but writing that exposes them to things outside their typical experience. This helps expand background knowledge and generate engagement. These days, digital libraries offer a supportive reading experience by providing features such as the ability to hear a fluent reader reading aloud. Many of them offer a glossary, so students can look up unfamiliar words as they read, growing their vocabulary naturally from in-context examples. Once a student finishes reading an article on axolotls, for example, they can move on to another article about reptiles and see many of the same vocabulary words in slightly different contexts.

Unfortunately, instead of receiving accessible texts with scaffolds to support them, what struggling or disinterested students often receive are watered-down texts at a lower difficulty level. Reading a book for younger children can make an already discouraged student feel even worse, and those simpler texts won’t push them to develop their comprehension skills at the appropriate level, which they need to do if they are going to catch up.

My hope for the future is that educators won’t let the pendulum swing too far in the direction of phonics. Students are finally getting the kind of explicit instruction in reading that they need and deserve, but they also need lots of opportunity—and motivation!—to practice this foundational academic skill along the way. Whether you graduated from teacher prep in 1950 or 2023, one universal truth all teachers know is that students become good readers by reading, and great readers by enjoying authentic, engaging texts.

Each year, we share our 10 most-read stories. Not surprisingly, many of this year’s Top 10 focused on equity, edtech innovation, immersive learning, and the science of reading. This year’s 6th most-read story focuses on the science of reading for older students.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for our free New York newsletter to keep up with NYC’s public schools.

The day before my first day of teaching middle school in 2018, I decorated my Brooklyn public school classroom with quotes from famous people reflecting on the importance of reading. Hanging on cream-colored cardstock were the words of Malcolm X, Toni Morrison, C.S. Lewis, Barack Obama, Maya Angelou, and dozens of other writers and thinkers. I hoped to inspire my students to fall in love with reading. I didn’t think to hope that all my students could do the very thing I was asking them to love. I didn’t know that part of my job as a sixth grade Humanities teacher would be to teach students to read in the first place.

There was a round table in the very back of my classroom that a group of five sixth-graders bee-lined to on day one. On day two, I asked one, then another, to read aloud to me. My request was met with silence, guessing, a fist slammed on the table, and a student storming out of the room. When those sixth grade students finally sat down for a reading assessment, their ability to decode print text was at a first or second grade level.

As a newly minted middle school English teacher, I was shocked by the number of students who entered my classroom unable to decode text. As I got to know them, I saw that herculean efforts to mask their reading disabilities revealed intelligence, determination, and traumatic relationships to school.

Since my first year of teaching, I have dedicated a lot of time to understanding why that happened. With the toxic combination of inaccurate reading assessments and a whole-word approach that encouraged guessing rather than decoding, the Matthew Effect (rich get richer, poor get poorer) has been in full swing in middle schools all around the country. The children who lived in text-rich environments and/or with families who could afford supplemental private tutoring got to “get it.” And those who didn’t? Many never acquired the literacy skills that are tied to power and privilege in this country.

Since my first day of teaching middle school, the “science of reading” — tying reading proficiency to explicit phonics instruction in addition to comprehension work—became a catchphrase for Facebook groups, professional development, and curricula. Lucy Calkins revised her popular but widely criticized “Units of Study” curriculum to include phonics-focused lessons. “Sold a Story,” a podcast series investigating reading instruction, became one of the top podcasts of the year. I also got trained in Wilson Reading Systems, an Orton-Gillingham and multisensory approach to teaching the basic phonics instruction many of my middle school students never received.

In my experience, conversations about the science of reading are happening primarily with elementary and early childhood educators. Those conversations are preventing further literacy injustice and disenfranchisement. But how are we addressing the ways that the system has failed our secondary students when they first learned to read? How can I, a middle school ELA teacher, support the students in my class who were passed along without receiving the literacy instruction they needed?

I am worried that secondary students and secondary education as a whole are being left out of the conversation on how children learn to read. It’s wonderful that (finally!) we are getting to the root of the issue, but what about the young people for whom Tier I instruction comes too late? What about students who, from here on out, will need intensive intervention in order to get on grade level?

My former sixth graders are in high school now, preparing for college and careers, but the best preparation they can get is one that helps them, once and for all, become fluent readers. I am concerned that among the excitement of elementary curriculum overhauls, we will leave the children who’ve been wronged even further behind. I am afraid that we’ll do to them what this country has done to people who struggle with literacy since its inception: disenfranchise, hide, and erase.

During that first year of teaching middle school, when I was shocked by the students in my class that struggled to sound out single-syllable words, who guessed based on the first two letters rather than sound out, and who, upon hearing they’d do partner reading, developed looks of panic in their eyes, I found hope in literacy intervention programs targeting adolescents who lacked key skills.

I want more for these students. I want every secondary educator to be trained in not just teaching kids about reading; I want them to be trained to teach their students to read, should one or two or 10 sit down in the back of their class and not know how.

I believe in the power of restorative literacy. Every day, I work with adolescents and pre-adolescents who have slipped through the massive cracks of our education system. What I have witnessed during my five years working in vastly different types of schools is that learning, achievement, and opportunity gaps either dramatically widen or dramatically close in middle school. Passion for social justice within our education systems is insufficient; the actual work — the literacy work — that makes change possible needs to occur.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

Related:
How to improve literacy through the science of reading
4 keys to teaching the science of reading in a virtual setting
For more news on literacy, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching page

Key points:

• Science-based reading instruction is seen as the way forward
• See also: How efficacy studies improve literacy instruction
• See also: 4 simple ways to put the science of reading into practice
• For more news on literacy, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching page

Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia now require science-based literacy instruction to be used in public schools. As educators and parents learn more about the science of reading, two recent polls reveal the alignment and the differences between their perspectives. A survey of parents and educators across the country reveals differing perspectives on the matter.

Shared focus on teacher training

Nationwide interest in the science of reading is relatively new, even though the science is decades old. However, most teachers were not taught to teach reading this way in their undergraduate and graduate programs. Reliance on other instructional methods, such as balanced literacy or whole language have been the norm. Because the Nation’s Report Card data released in the spring revealed that roughly two-thirds of fourth- and eighth-grade students cannot read proficiently, the efficacy of reading instruction once again became national news. And although this has been a trend over the last 20 years, in this post-pandemic timeframe, we see that parents and the general public have a much higher degree of familiarity with the issue and in fact, have become more acutely aware of students’ reading performances.

In the Harris Poll, 48 percent of parents said they are familiar with the science of reading, and just over half (54 percent) believe it’s important for schools to implement the science of reading and the principles of Structured Literacy. However, one of the starkest contrasts in the survey data is that 51 percent of parents strongly agree their children’s teachers are properly trained in the science of reading while only 27 percent of educators feel the same.

Teachers understand the importance of the science of reading, but almost half (46 percent) of them want more professional learning opportunities for applying this research to help them feel more successful. Both parents (88 percent) and educators (69 percent) agree educators should use educational technology to support literacy instruction. This alignment between what teachers and parents want for their students is relatively new. In the shift to technology-enabled remote instruction during the pandemic, there was some pushback against screen time and technology from parents. However, these results show that both parents and teachers do see the value and benefits of instructional technology to personalize learning, provide student practice, and monitor student progress.

Where do we go from here?

Although their perceptions sometimes differ, the good news is that both parents and educators see science-based reading instruction as the road forward. There are more educators and parents to inform, but the momentum for science-based instruction is growing across the country. Every student deserves to know how to read, and every educator deserves the training to facilitate reading development. Parents are already invested in effective instruction and learning for their students. As they learn more about the efficacy of science of reading-based instruction, educators have asked for the training they need to become successful literacy teachers.

If we begin with the premise that literacy is a civil right, then we must do everything we can to ensure that our students learn to read proficiently. The benefits of knowing how to read and write extend beyond academic success. Literacy is the gateway to personal empowerment and increased economic opportunities throughout life.

We need to focus on two opportunities we have to provide support for schools’ literacy programs: high-quality curriculum programs based on the science of reading and access to highly trained teachers. Evidence-based programs for curriculum and professional learning for educators are top priorities. It is most important for teachers to understand the science of how a student learns to read, as it is not an intuitive process. However, there are other factors that are important for reading success, such as leadership, systemic support, and professional learning so educators have the appropriate tools and are set up for success.

Teaching students to read, involving parents to provide support at home, and ensuring teachers have ongoing and comprehensive training will help equalize opportunity for all students, no matter who or where they are. District leaders have an obligation to find and use literacy programs that have been rigorously studied for efficacy. Research tells us that 95 percent of children are cognitively capable of learning how to read if taught using evidence-based instruction.

This is the future our students deserve. It’s up to all of us to work together to make this happen.

Key points:

• A focus on strengthening literacy through the science of reading will continue into the new year
• See also: 4 simple ways to put the science of reading into practice
• See also: Using tech to teach emerging readers high frequency words
• For more news on literacy, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching page

Driven in part by Mississippi’s success in improving student literacy scores, educators across the country have been discussing the science of reading and working to align their materials and practices to this research into how students learn to read. In the coming year, that broad trend will continue, with a shift to looking beyond knowledge building as schools, districts, and states begin improving capacity and creating systems aligned to the science of reading.

Here are a few specific predictions about what that could look like in 2024 for policymakers, schools and districts, educators, and publishers.

Policymakers

When it comes to policymakers, much of the action related to the science of reading in the coming year is likely to be at the state level. While there are individuals at the federal level eager to know more and ready to act, there hasn’t been a lot of policy movement at that level yet.

At the state level, policymakers and decision-makers will continue to develop guidance around the science of reading and evidence-aligned practices. Many states that have recently begun this work start with initiatives focused on building knowledge, which is a great first step. According to conversations in a community of practice that I convene with state education agency literacy leaders, a major focus will be building capacity for coaches to become the conduit between building knowledge and implementing practices aligned to the science of reading.

I hope that they will continue to draw support from national nonprofit organizations like The Reading League, The Path Forward, and ExcelinEd, as well as tap into the expertise of those who are volunteering their time and energy with The Reading League chapters across the United States. These are people with deep expertise in the science of reading who have worked in schools as coaches and administrators, and who are eager to be resources for state education agencies and other policymakers.

Recently, I’ve also seen a trend of people I refer to as “reading research legends,” such as Reid Lyon, Doug Carnine, and some of the researchers from The Reading League’s virtual lecture series, finding new energy and excitement as they share research to inform practices. I’m hopeful that their knowledge, experience, and expertise will be leveraged to shape and influence policy, whether it be at the state or national level.

Schools and districts

The move toward aligning literacy instruction with the science of reading has largely been a grassroots movement without federal support. Because of the lack of strong national guidance and support, some schools used their Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds to adopt a curriculum that purports to be the “science of reading.”

No curriculum, however, is the science of reading, and I believe schools and districts are beginning to understand this. The science of reading is not a set of practices. It is a body of research from multiple disciplines that helps us understand how people learn to read. If a curriculum is focused only on one component of literacy development, or if a district hasn’t worked to build knowledge of the science of reading within its faculty, they may not see the kind of reading growth they’re expecting.

To address some of those concerns, The Reading League Compass features a page for administrators to provide direction on all of the essential components required to build an entire evidence-aligned literacy system. I predict that in the new year, more administrators and other educators will focus not just on building knowledge and ensuring their materials are aligned to the science of reading, but they will go beyond to examine hiring practices, multi-tiered systems of support, assessments, the science of learning and implementation, and more. If they do, I also predict that they will be rewarded progressive and worthwhile growth in student literacy outcomes.

Educators

Educators, including teachers, specialists, and practitioners, have been an essential driving force in the movement to know more about the science of reading. Based on the inspiring work that has been supported by educators leading The Reading League chapters, I can confidently predict that educators will continue to be hungry to understand how to bring evidence-aligned practices and materials into their classrooms. They will continue to be empowered with knowledge of how to support their students’ literacy needs through professional development, curriculum implementation, data-based decision making, and individual learning from professional learning communities.

Unfortunately, there has been and will continue to be a trend in media and social media attempting to discredit work connected to the science of reading, particularly by companies whose market shares are threatened by shifts in literacy learning and teaching.

Those organizations are well-resourced and they fan the flames of dissonance by focusing on areas of misconception. The Reading League predicted this, and outlined it ahead of time in our free ebook, Science of Reading: Defining Guide. The guide explains that the science of reading is not an ideology or philosophy. It’s not a political movement or a one-size-fits-all approach to teaching. It’s not a program of instruction or a specific component of instruction such as phonics. As the backlash continues, fueled by moneyed interests and misconceptions, advocates, researchers, and educators will continue to push back on those misconceptions with scientific evidence and, in time, improved student outcomes.

Additionally, there has been some historic divisiveness between science of reading advocates and some advocates who support diverse learners including English learners and emergent bilingual students (ELs/EBs). This year, The Reading League and the National Committee for Effective Literacy (NCEL), which is an organization that supports ELs/EBs, partnered on a joint statement on the effectiveness of the science of reading for ELs/EBs, hosted on The Reading League Compass’ English Learner/Emergent Bilingual page. I predict that in the coming year, partnerships like the one between The Reading League and NCEL will begin to help heal divisiveness and welcome new, diverse voices into the conversation on evidence-aligned literacy instruction.

Publishers

Publishers will continue to work toward aligning their instructional materials to the science of reading in 2024. The Reading League remains hopeful as we hear of publishers using resources, such as our Curriculum Evaluation Guidelines, to refine their materials.

As I look forward to the new year, the success of schools, districts, and states like Mississippi’s student literacy turnaround is exciting and inspiring, but they didn’t accomplish it by building knowledge alone. They did it through a comprehensive overhaul of their approach to literacy learning. Right now, schools and districts are poised to make 2024 the year the rest of the country puts in the work to follow their example and share in their success.

Key points:

• Access to different types of digital content helps students generate reading interest
• A digital reading platform has helped one district make data-driven decision
• See related article: 5 resources that support literacy in elementary school
• For more news on literacy, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching page

Five years ago, we were already well into discussions about investing in a digital reading application. Our overall objective was to expand access to literacy and use real-world data in curating and individualizing collections to better serve the needs of the district’s highly diverse student population. A priority was to give students seamless connection to the digital collections of the Lexington Public Library that serves our local area. As was the case for most districts in the country, the pandemic precipitated an even greater push to provide digital content.

The platform we selected—OverDrive Education’s Sora reading app—aligns with our public library system for easy access to its wealth of digital materials. The solution also allowed us to ease into the use of digital content at our own pace and within funding availability.

Below are some of the highlights of what we learned from following the data and the ways we’re applying that knowledge to improve access to literacy and help more students discover the excitement of reading.

Serving diverse demographics, ensuring maximum investment impact

Our district—Fayette County Public Schools in Lexington, Kentucky—encompasses 70 schools and programs that serve more than 41,000 students from backgrounds representing 95 home languages. We’re a minority-majority district with approximately 6,600 English Learners (ELs) and 5,200 students classified for special education.

Our mission within the Office of Information and Analysis is to provide solutions that support more effective teaching and learning. When looking for our digital reading system, we found these features very beneficial.

• Aligning with our public library using a single platform. Both the district and the Lexington Public Library use digital libraries. Students can easily access the collections through their reading app. Readers don’t even need their library card—they can use their school Google accounts to access both our district and public libraries.

• Providing impactful data on student reading habits. We can view data insights from both public library reading activity and from our own district collections. Following students’ reading habits across all collections gives us a more accurate and complete picture of their interests and reading behaviors.

• Maximizing purchasing power for district-wide access. Standardizing district-wide on a reading app ensures ubiquitous access and maximizes the resources we can deliver with each investment.

Since our launch of this platform, we have continued to follow the data to build out collections, as well as to advocate for reading resources.

Building the collection

To build and expand our collection, our technology team solicits insights from the departments that have provided funding. We also work as a department to analyze the data and make purchasing decisions. Our Library Advisory Council helps brainstorm about content, and we regularly share data with district librarians. Staying close to the data has helped the district bolster both enthusiasm for and competency in reading.

Creating excitement

Librarians and teachers routinely review usage statistics such as books opened, time read,  reading sessions, average time per session and per book, total unique users, and achievements earned. This data helps them track progress and make recommendations for high-interest or high-instructional-value titles. With this information in hand, we’re able to curate individual, department, themed, and other collections that we know will engage more students.

Expanding our community of readers

Giving students access to different types of digital content helps generate reading interest. Our students can choose to read digital magazines, non-English content, Battle-of-the Books texts, and books from wide variety of curated collections.

Usage statistics have given credence to our educators’ long-held beliefs that offering students independent reading choice and behind-the-computer-screen privacy increases interest and participation. But the data doesn’t always support preconceived notions. For example, in following the data on average-time-per-book by format we learned that our students were spending more time in audiobook texts than in ebooks. That surprising discovery led us to increase funding for our audiobook collection. Without this data in hand, we’d have missed a golden opportunity to boost reading hours.

Equitizing access

One of our top department goals is to support equitable access to resources. The digital reading app helps us achieve that objective by eliminating such traditional roadblocks as limited English fluency, school size and staffing constraints. Today, by leveraging Sora features and usage data, we’re better equipped to offer titles in our students’ home languages, give every reader access to a district-sized resource pool, and maintain a robust collection of targeted books.

Using data for advocacy

Increasing funding to expand our collection of audiobooks is just one example of the many ways we’re using data for advocacy. Collaborating departments can request specific data so that they can see the impact of their efforts and advocate for continued support. Usage trends inform purchase decisions—for example, we track usage of materials and content packages to calculate our return on investment and validate specific funding requests.

As evidenced by our success in making reading more accessible and relevant to students across demographics, choosing this path was one of the best decisions we’ve made in our on-going efforts to support reading in the classroom.

Key points:

• Students are struggling with reading proficiency, and the pandemic made it worse
• Stronger literacy skills boost students’ confidence and motivation
• See related article: Implementing the science of reading ‘one bite at a time’
• For more news on the science of reading, see eSN’s Innovative Teaching page

In districts across the country, educators are continuing to support students with post-pandemic learning recovery. Many students are still reading below the level appropriate for their grade–roughly one-third of fourth graders in the United States read at or below what’s considered the basic level. And unfortunately, even before the pandemic, reading achievement has been low over the past several decades.

Districts incorporating the science of reading into their curricula are seeing improved student outcomes. However, because the science of reading refers to broad research in a variety of fields on how a child learns to read, practical applications have not yet been widely taught to educators and there is a sizeable gap between theory and action.

Educators deserve relevant professional development in research-based instructional practices to inform their classroom instruction. One example to learn from is the “Mississippi Miracle,” in which a state once ranked second to last in the U.S. for literacy saw fourth-grade reading scores rise by 10 points – even after school closures during the pandemic – due to an emphasis on explicitly teaching foundational reading skills and professional development.

To help other school leaders start replicating the success that administrators and educators experienced in Mississippi, district leaders can guide the implementation of the science of reading principles through high-quality instruction in phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. To do this effectively, it is important to align lessons with research-based practices that don’t encumber or overwhelm administrators, educators, or students.

Provide trusted resources

Educators need a consolidated source of trusted resources when making any significant classroom changes. This includes research, webinars, and other content to guide implementation.

Each state’s department of education may have guidelines, frameworks, and resources for implementing the science of reading. The U.S. Department of Education also provides resources and guidance on evidence-based practices in literacy. District leaders can supplement those guidelines with training programs that offer explicit, systematic approaches to teaching reading, or attend a webinar series from education technology partners that offers data-driven suggestions for literacy curricula.

Digital resources include Literacy Worldwide, research-based articles from the International Literacy Association (ILA), and peer-reviewed reports from journals like Reading Research Quarterly, the Journal of Educational Psychology, and the Journal of Literacy Research. The science of reading is an evolving field, so it’s essential that both administrators and teachers have the necessary resources to stay up to date with the latest research and best practices.

Choose the right classroom technologies

Supplemental classroom technology that aligns with science-based practices not only helps ease implementation of new curricula but can also tell educators where to target instruction respective to each student’s understanding.

Adaptive technology can assess students’ current literacy levels through formative, diagnostic assessments and then create personalized learning paths for each student. These real-time insights ensure students work on the specific skills they need to develop, whether it’s phonics, reading comprehension, vocabulary, or writing.  Students who excel in a particular area can access more advanced content, while those struggling can receive additional support and practice. This differentiation makes certain all students are challenged at an appropriate level.

Many adaptive education platforms incorporate interactive and multimedia elements, making the learning process more engaging for students. Gamification, interactive exercises, and multimedia resources can capture students’ attention and keep them motivated to practice literacy skills.

When students experience success and progress in their literacy skills through education technology, it can boost their confidence and motivation. This built-in positive reinforcement can have a significant impact on their overall learning experience. That said, literacy and reading technology should always be chosen with the understanding that it is not meant to replace teacher-directed instruction but to complement it.

Be prepared to make strategic changes

Implementing science of reading curriculum in classrooms requires careful planning, strategic rollout, and the flexibility to make adjustments as needed. The science of reading is an evidence-based approach to teaching reading that focuses on the underlying cognitive processes involved in reading – as such, best practices are subject to change with the latest research and with anecdotal evidence from student performance.

Start by defining clear, achievable, and measurable objectives. These objectives should be aligned with your school, district, or state’s literacy goals and standards. Instead of implementing the curriculum all at once, consider a phased rollout. Districts can also consider establishing a system for teachers, students, parents, and caregivers to provide feedback on the new curriculum and spotlight necessary adjustments.

Not all students and classrooms are the same, and what works for one group may not work for another. Implementing a new curriculum takes time, and success may not be immediate. Patience and a commitment to evidence-based practices are key to ensuring that the science of reading best practices have a positive, lasting impact on students’ reading skills and motivation to learn.

Key points:

• Immersive opportunities make high frequency words stick and keep students engaged
• Mastering high frequency words helps students grow into proficient readers
• See related article: How efficacy studies improve literacy instruction
• For more news on literacy, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching page

If you were to poll an audience of educators–classroom teachers, literacy specialists, reading researchers, and university professors–about whether high frequency words should be taught in early elementary, the resounding answer would be YES. These words, after all, are important to students’ ultimate reading success.

The nuances of teaching high frequency words in early elementary would only arise around how these words should be taught.

Luckily, there is a plethora of best practice research and engaging, tech-enabled activities on teaching high frequency words to help teachers make it both a fun and interesting learning experience for young students.

Understanding high frequency words

Before teaching about high frequency words, it is important to understand how they differ from sight words. While these categories of words are often used interchangeably and can cross pollinate, high frequency words are words that appear most frequently in spoken and written language. Sight words, on the other hand, are those words that students recognize by sight–without the need to stop and decode the word–when reading.

For example, “the” is a high frequency word as well as a sight word for many people. “Email” is not a high frequency word, but is often a sight word. Classmates’ names often become sight words for students. Kindergarten students who are still emergent readers during the first semester will quickly learn their name by sight, as well as their classmates’ names (…and, they often get a great sense of satisfaction when recognizing and reading each other’s names!)

When it comes to choosing the actual words that are considered high frequency words, the educational community has embraced three different lists of words: the Dolch, Zeno, and Fry high frequency word lists. These lists have many shared words, and there is no research that says one list supersedes the other. Any of the lists or teaching a combination of the lists should still help produce successful readers.

Strategies for teaching emerging readers high frequency words

There are hundreds of ways to teach high frequency words and the majority of those ways fall into two instructional categories: memorization and phonics integration.

Both of these instructional strategies lead to students learning and quickly recalling many, many words–both high frequency words and sight words–with automaticity. This is called orthographic mapping, which is essentially a progression of warehousing words permanently in a student’s memory for immediate retrieval.

With memorization, teachers can create fun–and effective–learning opportunities for students as long as a few rules are applied. First, it is important to eliminate distractions so that the focus is on the high frequency word. Distractions can include other words printed around the target word, and having accompanying pictures with a word. For example, a picture of a girl in a swing holding her cat can be distracting when the target word is “with.”

It is also important for teachers to say the high frequency word clearly multiple times and to put the word in a sentence for contextual understanding. Providing students with the opportunity to write the word, so they are making the physical connection to the spoken word, is also important.  

There are a number of digital flashcard apps teachers can use to help students memorize high frequency words. The flashcards can also be shown to the whole class using projectors or interactive displays as part of a whole group activity.

Creating “sounds walls” in the classroom–whether on a bulletin board or digital display–highlighting four to five high frequency words is another great way to help students visualize, practice, and memorize target words. Each week, the words can be swapped out with new ones for them to learn.

Another strategy for teaching high frequency words is through integrating the words into phonics lessons. It will help if teachers pick high frequency words that integrate with the phonics skills they are covering. For example, when teaching the phonic element /s/, it can be valuable to include the high frequency word “said,” even if the vowel irregularity of /ai/ hasn’t been taught yet. If students are learning /s/ and maybe even /d/, they will be excited and motivated to apply this knowledge to learning and remembering a new word.

With either memorization or phonics integration, teachers can play a quiz game with students in which teams compete to come up with answers to questions about high frequency words. Or, they can have students participate in racetrack-style board games where two or more players move markers along the spaces of a path from start to finish. At each stop, the player must read a word and use it correctly in a sentence in order to stay on that space. Technology, whether through the use of apps or student devices, can easily be incorporated into both of these game-based activities to make the experiences even more engaging.

Regardless of which instructional strategy is used to teach high frequency words, it is important that students are immersed and active participants in the learning experience. This means that students should be hearing, saying, reading and writing high frequency words consistently within foundational lessons. These immersive opportunities are what make the words stick and what keep students engaged. And, it’s the ultimate mastery of high frequency words that will enable young students to grow into proficient readers. 

Key points:

• Literacy is critical for students–and elementary years are a pivotal time
• These online tools help students develop essential literacy skills
• See related article: How efficacy studies improve literacy instruction
• For more news on literacy, see eSN’s Innovative Teaching page

Fall is the best time of year in Montana. The air is crisp, the colors are beautiful, and, as school has been in session for two months, students and teachers alike have settled into a nice routine. It is the time of year where we analyze the data from the first two months of school, tweak instruction to meet student needs, and accelerate our efforts to help our students achieve as much growth as possible. Just as in classrooms nationwide, Montana’s teachers place an intense focus on supporting literacy in elementary school instruction. 

As a veteran teacher of 17 years who has taught in both elementary and middle school classrooms, I have found that there are a number of powerful edtech tools available to support student literacy. My students love to be on the computers and get so excited when I say we are going to be doing a lesson online. However, I refuse to allow students to simply log screen time in my classroom. The tools and resources my students use must generate discussion and are often used in a team or partner setting, as I strongly believe that student interaction supports our instructional goals.

Here are are five of the best online tools I’ve found that support student discussion and help improve literacy:

1. Epic: Epic is a digital library of online books. I have used Epic for a number of years, and have been an Epic Ambassador for the last 5 years. I have been able to use it at every level I have taught. It has audiobooks for those beginning readers and chapter books for the more advanced. You can create quizzes for the books your students are reading and assign collections to your students. I found Epic to be really helpful when using it for reports. Epic allows for all students to research and learn about different topics. Epic is currently a free resource for teachers and allows students access to around 20,000 books from 7-3. Your district can purchase a school account and it will provide 24/7 access to around 40,000 books to students.

2. Vooks: Vooks is a wonderful resource for the PK-2 grade teacher. It provides animated stories that are read aloud to students. It has lessons that support the stories they have animated. This includes discussion points, themes, and so much more that can be used to scaffold student discussions of text. Vooks is  a resource that does cost money, however if your district has Discovery Education, it is included.

3. Discovery Education: This is an incredible resource that every educator should be using in their classroom. Discovery Education provides a wide variety of resources and lessons for teachers and students to use. For the primary grades it has read aloud stories with lessons provided to go with the story. WIthin the lessons there is a wide variety of ideas presented from SEL lessons, to art lessons, to science lessons and so much more. They have slideshows that teach students how to edit and find mistakes. 
   
   For the older grades, there are videos where teachers can add comprehension questions to check for understanding. There are engaging videos to get students talking about reading and the different strategies used to help students become better readers and develop comprehension skills. They have channels that promote certain ideas and within the channels are more lessons and ideas. My students beg me to do the Fix It slides. They get to pretend they are the teacher and have to help their students find their mistakes. They get to practice their reading skills, but writing skills as well.  In my home state of Montana, educators have free access to this resource through the state Office of Public Instruction, but as this resource is used in school systems nationwide, check with your district on availability. 

4. Storyline Online: This website is targeted to PK-4th grade students. It began as a site where actors read famous children’s books. It has become a place where teachers and parents can access the stories and lesson plans to go with them. The site does a great job scaffolding and getting students talking about reading in its lessons. It provides sentence starters and lessons are based on Common Core Standards. My students loved listening to Clark the Shark and completing the rhyming lesson that went with it.

5. Readworks: This is a free website featuring a variety of reading passages for K-12 grade. I like to use this resource in 2 ways. First, we listen to a story. Readworks passages always have highlighted vocabulary words that we discuss as a class. Then it provides questions to check comprehension. 
   
   Readworks also features a wide variety of question types from multiple choice to class discussions. I enjoy the class discussion prompts because it promotes students talking about their thinking. For the upper grades you can assign passages and assignments to specific students. This helps to differentiate instruction. Readworks provides paired texts, which are two prompts similar within a theme, topic or literary element. There are questions about each passage and then students have to make connections between the passages and write about it. When I taught the upper grades I used this a lot to help prepare students for standardized tests.

Overall, there are many ways to use technology to get students reading and talking about what they are reading. During my years of teaching, I’ve learned that if students are invested in what they are reading, and if they are able to share their learning with their peers, their passion for learning will grow alongside their reading comprehension. In this way, these resources help develop the lifelong learners every teacher wants their students to become.

Key points:

• The science of reading can and should guide curriculum design
• Efficacy research evaluates how faithfully teachers use literacy programs and the outcomes students achieve
• See related article: 4 big benefits of professional development for adolescent reading instruction
• For more news on literacy, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching page

Prior to the pandemic, reading achievement had been showing little to no growth in the National Assessment of Educational Progress data. Scores have continued to decline, in part because of pandemic-related learning interruptions. In short, it has never been more critical to understand how to support students on the path to reading proficiency by the end of 3rd grade.

Applying research to practice is at the core of instruction based in the science of reading. The science can and should guide curriculum design. Efficacy research is a proven method of  evaluating instructional delivery decisions so teachers, parents, administrators, and students understand what practices and resources connect directly with gains in literacy achievement.

The efficacy research at Reading Horizons evaluates the fidelity with which teachers use their programs and the outcomes students achieve when programs are implemented as designed. Their research program encompasses studies with a wide variety of school districts, to ensure that their data reflects our nation’s student population and teachers’ levels of training and instructional approaches.

An introductory look at the data

According to Dr. Stephanie Myers, vice president of impact and research for Reading Horizons, their current research program investigated U.S. school districts that have adopted Reading Horizons Discovery, their foundational literacy curriculum for grades K–3. During the 2021-2022 school year, they conducted research with four districts in four states, using third-party assessments to measure student outcomes. They focused their research in five distinct areas:

• Effective communication to support the Reading Horizons method for foundational literacy, with teachers providing students with a clear, concise lesson summary and the concepts covered prior to the lesson to ensure students connect new and existing skills;
• Use of the curriculum’s embedded instructional routines including dictation routines, and demonstration by students that they understand the information they were learning on their own and in collaboration with classmates;
• Asking students targeted questions to monitor learning in real time as the lesson progresses;
• Providing feedback that reaches and supports all students; and
• Using the pacing and structure as established in the curriculum to allow an appropriate amount of time for each aspect of the lesson to ensure students reach transfer, defined as their ability to apply the day’s concepts.

What the research said

“Data from the four implementations studied to date are encouraging,” said Myers. “Those teachers observed implementing the curriculum with high degrees of fidelity are seeing the fastest results for their students.” All four districts logged increased growth over the previous year. Students in kindergarten and 1st grade demonstrated greater growth than those in 2nd grade, which could be because these 2nd-graders may have missed essential instructional opportunities connected to pandemic school closures or other disruptions. Some other key findings included:

• The marking system: Within the growing body of data on best practices related to the science of reading, several approaches to teaching the bottom of Scarborough’s Reading Rope have emerged, covering phonological awareness, decoding, and sight recognition for words. This research study and others the company has conducted point to significant gains among learners with teachers who understand and apply a marking system designed to help students learn how to pronounce and build words.
• Multi-sensory learning: A multi-sensory approach is also associated directly with positive research results. Myers said that, “The multi-sensory engagement that comes from using hand motions, reading often during lessons, standing during lessons, and using their voices throughout instruction activates different parts of the brain, leading to greater learning at a more rapid pace.”
• Instructional routines: Data points out that instructional routines may also link to growth. These routines should ensure that all students participate through lessons. A collaborative environment emphasizes peer-to-peer work. The benefits include making student learning transparent for teachers as they monitor students working together and using targeted questions to assess in real time how students interpret and understand the day’s concepts. This observational data informs the feedback teachers provide to students to correct or deepen their thinking.

Using data to inform improvement

The four-district study also pinpointed opportunities to further strengthen literacy instruction using the science of reading. These include more emphasis on supporting teachers as they learn and apply instructional routines. “Predictable lessons, particularly for younger students, help learners focus on the materials they’re learning,” said Myer. “Schools at the beginning of their implementation will benefit from additional help in these routines.”

Reading Horizons’ research also pointed out challenges with pacing: some teachers spent too much time on review, thus slowing the pace of learning. These teachers could benefit from PD guiding them to “make real-time notes and then follow-up with students who may need additional instruction, rather than holding up the whole class.”

Reflecting on the purpose of this and other research, Myers concluded, “It’s more critical than ever that we understand how to teach students to read, and we have all the tools and resources needed to make their journey to literacy as fast and successful as possible. The more we understand what materials work, what conditions matter, and where improvements can make a difference, the more students will learn to read proficiently in less time.”

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.

Indiana is in the midst of an enormous undertaking to improve literacy rates. The approach: Align state standards, curriculum, and teacher training programs with practices rooted in the science of reading, which emphasizes phonics to help students decode words.

Literacy coach Mika Frame has a memorable mantra for accomplishing big goals. 

“My current principal always tells me, ‘Eat an elephant one bite at a time,’” she said. “Through this saying, he always encourages me to seek change in our staff by taking small steps, as opposed to expecting my teachers to change all at once or in drastic measures.”

A K-2 literacy coach at Rose Hamilton Elementary School in Centerville, Frame is part of the first cohort of educators that trained in reading science practices as part of the Indiana Literacy Cadre. Now she co-teaches, analyzes student data to see who needs more help, and leads her colleagues through the state’s new requirements.

Frame told Chalkbeat about her work as Indiana looks to bring more literacy coaches like her to its schools.

What drew you to a career in education?

My favorite part of high school was when I was a cadet teacher and worked with elementary students. I still love working with children today. I enjoy the energy, enthusiasm, and curiosity of young learners. Witnessing the progress and achievements of students, seeing them overcome challenges, and helping them reach their potential brings me a deep sense of satisfaction.

What does your typical day look like?

My typical day at Rose Hamilton includes working alongside teachers in their classrooms. Co-teaching is my favorite aspect of working with my colleagues. An additional responsibility I have most days involves disaggregating learning data. This data often presents patterns and helps teachers identify subgroups of students who need additional interventions. Each month, I also lead professional learning community meetings and offer new ideas and strategies to our teachers. Finally, coordinating testing is an important part of my position; I help ensure testing protocols are executed with fidelity and testing deadlines are met.

What’s your favorite lesson to teach and why?

My favorite lessons to teach are phonics lessons. Phonics plays a vital role in children’s literacy development by providing them with the tools to decode words, read fluently, and comprehend written materials effectively. It sets the stage for their future academic success. Phonics empowers children to read independently and with confidence. When children can decode words accurately, they can read books and other written materials on their own. This opens up a world of knowledge and imagination. I love seeing children’s eyes light up when they start sounding out words. 

When did you first learn about the ideas of reading science? How have you been able to apply those recently with fellow educators or students?

I first learned in depth about the science of reading when I was accepted into the Literacy Cadre program. In the Summer of 2022, I attended a weeklong training that dove into the science of reading. I have been able to apply these strategies by leading professional learning community meetings. During this time, I’ve encouraged teachers in the building to present to one another about the science of reading instructional practices they are doing in their classrooms. 

Tell us about your own experience with school and how it affects your work today.

I grew up in Modoc, Indiana. My community was rural and consisted of approximately 160 people. I graduated with only 18 students in my class, and that included a few foreign exchange students. It was a close-knit community in which everyone knew each other. This background helps me understand that every single child matters, and no matter the size of the district, helping all students succeed academically and helping them reach their full potential is the ultimate goal in education.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received, and how have you put it into practice?

My current principal always tells me, “Eat an elephant one bite at a time.” Through this saying, he always encourages me to seek change in our staff by taking small steps, as opposed to expecting my teachers to change all at once or in drastic measures. I have used this advice frequently as our school has been going through new initiatives in the last year. Our next step this coming school year is to look into a new phonics program. We are slowly looking into the programs we are using and making small changes, if needed. Again, small steps that lead to changes are important! 

What’s one thing you’ve read that has made you a better educator?

This past year I read “Shifting the Balance” by Jan Miller Burkins and Kari Yates with my colleagues in the literacy cohort. It really helped me understand the aspects of science of reading. After reading the book, my superintendent was kind enough to buy a set for my teachers, and I led a book study at Rose Hamilton. It was great to meet after school with the teachers and reflect on each chapter, as well as what we do or possibly could do better.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education.

Related: The intersection of the science of reading and edtech

Key points:

• Teachers and librarians play a pivotal role in helping students find what–and how–they like to read
• Let’s take a look at some of the most-read titles by grade level
• See related article: I work with struggling readers–here’s what’s standing in their way

About five years ago, my New Year’s resolution was to read all the books on my bookshelf I’d never managed to crack. While that resolution was a complete failure (I still have unread books on my shelf), it reignited my love of reading.

Each year, I document my #BritReads reading journey on my social media channels. This year, I decided to bring #BritReads to life with my close family and friends. In lieu of a Christmas present, I’m buying each of them four books a year – books I’ve read or those that are at the top of my list to read. Rather than a one-size-fits-all #BritReads Book Club, I’m curating books just for each of them. For example, my Christmas movie-loving, hopeless-romantic childhood friend will not get my favorite thriller or whodunit!

Just like my little book club, as librarians and teachers, I know you’re looking to connect students with their next favorite book, which means you need to be ahead of the trends and know about the titles emerging as the next generation of books to remember. So, let’s take a look at what students are reading in school libraries and classrooms across the country. Here are the top requested titles according to trend reports in our industry:

In lower elementary, the most popular book (and my #BritReads pick for the little ones) is a picture book called The Smart Cookie by John Jory. It’s the fifth picture book in Jory’s series teaching life lessons using food, accompanied by The Cool Bean, which also tops the list. In The Smart Cookie, the cookie realizes that while school can be tough, with hard work, anyone can be smart in their own way.  From friendly food… to animals. In the nonfiction section, the Who Would Win series is also a hit.  Students love to learn about various species of animals like sharks, reptiles, and birds and select which species survives. 

In upper elementary, Dog Man, The Baby-Sitters Club, and the I Survived series continue to be perennial favorites. In the world of nonfiction, students are starting to learn about race and history through books like Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre, We Are Still Here!: Native American Truths Everyone Should Know, and Stamped (For Kids): Racism, Antiracism, and You. My #BritReads favorite for upper elementary school is a throwback to my childhood. I read every single book in The Baby-Sitters Club series as a child, so it’s heartwarming to see these Ann M. Martin characters as a part of young lives all over again.

In middle school, books about middle grade students navigating the world dominate the world of fiction, such as the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series and Jerry Craft’s New Kid. In nonfiction, students and teachers are gravitating toward true stories about normal people who accomplish extraordinary things such as I Am Malala, Hidden Figures, and Undefeated: Jim Thorp and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team. My #BritReads pick is Hidden Figures: The Untold True Story of Four African American Women Who Helped Launch our Nation into Space. I read the adult version as part of #BritReads21, but this one has been adapted for a younger audience, giving students an opportunity to learn about a group of women who were well ahead of their time!

As for high school and adult-level titles, many of the books that students are reading are required as part of the curriculum including classics like The Catcher in the Rye, Of Mice and Men, and A Raisin in the Sun. But the classics sit alongside modern fiction hits like The Hate U Give and The Hunger Games series. I was pleased to see I picked some winners for the first #BritReads Book Club mailing. Each of my journalist friends got a copy of Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, which happens to be on the top of the adult nonfiction list.  My #BritReads favorite, The Catcher in the Rye, is one of the inspirations behind my 5-month-old boy’s name – Holden!

Across all age levels, teachers and librarians continue to seek titles written by diverse authors featuring multi-cultural characters with social and emotional learning lessons. If it happens to be a part of a series, or graphic novel or Manga form…even better! You can check them all out on Titlewave.

Key points:

• Dyslexic students often incur additional stress in the classroom
• Using different learning tools and regular communication can help students’ comfort levels
• See related article: The intersection of the science of reading and edtech

Reading-based learning differences such as dyslexia can pose unique challenges for students in school. These challenges, however, aren’t indicative of a student’s intelligence or potential. With understanding and tailored approaches, educators can create a supportive environment for these learners.

Here are five critical steps to support students with reading-based learning differences:

Reduce stress levels: One major stressor for students with dyslexia is the fear of being called upon to read out loud in front of their peers. Avoid putting them in these anxiety-provoking situations. Instead, privately check in and offer opportunities to participate in ways that don’t highlight their struggle.

Set a clear agenda: Clarity is vital. When students are uncertain about when they’ll be called upon or what is expected in a reading or writing task, anxiety builds. To avoid this, always lay out a clear agenda. By ensuring students know what to expect, you can mitigate their anxieties. A predictable structure allows these students to better prepare and engage.

Introduce different modalities and tools: Tailor your teaching techniques. If the lesson’s goal is to understand content rather than to master reading, consider alternative formats like audiobooks (if available in your school). For writing, dictation software can also be invaluable. It’s about finding a pathway into the content that resonates with the student. Equally, because many students with dyslexia grapple with executive function skills, it’s helpful to offer tools that support organization. Planners that break down assignments, scaffolded note-taking templates, or even a syllabus can make all the difference in setting clear expectations.

Encourage self-advocacy: While speaking up for oneself is essential, it’s not always easy for students, especially early in the school year. It can also be difficult for younger students versus those in high school. Take the time to be proactive in understanding each student. Have open conversations, allowing learners to voice their struggles and needs. This communication empowers students to take charge of their learning, lets them know they’re not alone and most importantly, that you are rooting for them to succeed.

Support, don’t simplify: There’s a significant difference between support and simplification. Making tasks easier for students with dyslexia or other learning differences is not recommended, as this approach can negatively impact a student’s self-esteem. It’s important to remember that students with dyslexia often have an intelligence level commensurate with their peers, but their reading skills might not reflect this. Instead of simplifying tasks, offer support mechanisms that help them overcome specific obstacles.

Lastly, I also suggest conducting regular check-ins with students who have learning differences. Because dyslexia can be a source of shame for some learners, especially at the start of the academic year when they’ve yet to develop a rapport with their teacher, it’s essential to touch base with them regularly. A little kindness and asking a simple question like, “How’s it going?” can dramatically impact how they feel about school.

By embracing these strategies, educators can help pave the way for a more inclusive and supportive literacy learning environment. With understanding and consistent support, we can help every student shine.

Related: I work with struggling readers–here’s what’s standing in their way

Key points:

• States are ensuring teachers have thorough professional development as they implement lessons learned from the science of reading
• Using digital tools can positively impact students’ literacy achievement
• See related article: As we embrace the ‘science of reading,’ we can’t leave out older students

While this fall marks my 38^th year in education, it has been 28 years since I was a classroom teacher. Teaching elementary school was the hardest job I ever had, but there are many parts of the role I miss. This time of year, I especially miss the opportunity to teach young learners to read and write. As any elementary educator will tell you, seeing a child’s eyes light up as they grow into individuals capable of expressing themselves and exploring their own interests through the written word is one of the greatest joys in life.

The fulfillment I find in helping elementary school students develop their literacy skills has driven my interest in the science of reading. As the single most-discussed topic in education at this moment, the science of reading has been a focus of intense interest in state legislatures nationwide. Specifically, as of July 2023, about 30 states have passed legislation or created new policies focused on teaching reading.

But what is the science of reading? One of the most useful definitions of this incredibly important body of work comes from the Ohio Department of Education, which explains that the science of reading is a body of scientific evidence that:

• Informs how students learn to read and write proficiently
• Explains why some students have difficulty with reading and writing
• that all students benefit from explicit and systematic instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, and writing to become effective readers
• Does not rely on any model of teaching students to read based on meaning, structure and syntax, and visual cues

I really like the Ohio Department of Education’s definition of the science of reading as it focuses on the interdisciplinary nature of the topic as well as how the body of knowledge, “Informs how students learn to read and write proficiently.”

I have seen close-up and in person some truly innovative examples of how school systems nationwide are implementing lessons learned from the science of reading. For example, we have all seen the national spotlight shining on Mississippi for the incredible work that their Department of Education has done to roll out the science of reading purposefully and systematically across the state. Districts across the country have provided extensive professional learning, changed their core reading programs, and strengthened their instructional practices.

Maryland’s Prince George’s County Public Schools is supporting all K-3 teachers with science of reading resources and practices. Educators are diving into the integration of the science of reading and the teaching of science using digital resources. This work, which was started through conversations with the Mississippi Department of Education, was recently presented to the district’s PreK- 3 teachers during their recent A Kaleidoscope of Possibilities: Science of Reading professional development event.

The practice of integrating the science of reading and the teaching of science was inspired by Natalie Wexler, the author of The Knowledge Gap. In her work, Wexler states very clearly: “The best way to build that knowledge, beginning in the early elementary grades, is to immerse children in social studies, science, and the arts–the very subjects that have been marginalized to make more time for comprehension skill practice.” Using this philosophy as a starting point, Prince George’s County K-3 teachers explored three instructional ideas:

Using video segments to build understanding of science concepts. Engaging video segments bring the power of multimodal learning alive. Video segments can introduce students to different concepts like the life cycle of plants and animals by showing and telling them simultaneously. As students learn these concepts in science, they also provide background knowledge to support students in reading decodable texts with words like stem, leaf, or root.

Using science words for phonological awareness and phonics activities. This does not sound all that interesting or innovative, does it? However, think about it. Often, we have siloed our subject areas. Literacy is taught at one time. Science is taught at a different time. This idea suggests that we need to map and integrate our curriculum. While students are learning about plants, stems, and roots in science, the K-3 teachers in Prince George’s County discussed and investigated the use of sound or Elkonin boxes to segment the words.

Developing digital activities to integrate background knowledge building and literacy skills. Students tend to love digital activities because they mirror their use of technology outside the classroom. From real world, relevant content to adaptability and gamification, digital tools and resources can engage students and stoke their natural curiosity. Let us capitalize on students’ interest in technology and employ digital resources and strategies that positively impact the literacy achievement of our students. To accomplish this, Prince George’s educators examined a background building framework to use with their science resources and incorporated this framework into the creation of digital activities that will be used in science and reading.

We know that the literacy achievement of our students needs focus. It is refreshing to see that in state legislatures nationwide, the science of reading has received bipartisan support that may result in fairly significant positive outcomes for our students. Now, it is time for edtech companies to step up and provide the professional learning and digital resources that will encourage even further integration of the science of reading and the teaching of science. I believe the use of digital tools to support this goal will form a new nexus of student success that not only impacts their literacy achievement, but also their science achievement as well.

Related:
How to improve literacy through the science of reading
4 keys to teaching the science of reading in a virtual setting