Reading Rockets offers a wealth of reading strategies, lessons, and activities designed to help young children learn how to read and read better. Our reading resources assist parents, teachers, and other educators in working with struggling readers who require additional help in reading fundamentals and comprehension skills development.
About Reading
Children learn to speak and walk by instinct. But did you know reading is different? Reading needs to be taught. Kids in the United States, though, aren't learning this fundamental skill. An astonishing 40 percent of American fourth graders can't read at the "basic" level. The following articles provide an introduction to what's involved in teaching kids to read and where we are in succeeding or failing at doing so.
This section contains 22 articles.
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Learning to Read and Write: What Research Reveals
Children take their first critical steps toward learning to read and write very early in life. Long before they can exhibit reading and writing production skills, they begin to acquire some basic understandings of the concepts about literacy and its functions.
Reading to young children promotes language acquisition and correlates with literacy development and, later on, with achievement in reading comprehension and overall success in school.
Ten Myths About Learning to Read
There are many beliefs and a great deal of dogma associated with reading acquisition, and people are often reluctant to let go of their beliefs despite contradictory research evidence. Here are 10 of the most popular and most potentially pernicious myths that influence reading education.
The statistics are consistent: Young male readers lag behind their female counterparts in literacy skills. This article looks at the social, psychological, and developmental reasons why, and suggests solutions — including the need for more men to become role models for reading.
Reading is a multifaceted process involving word recognition, comprehension, fluency, and motivation. Learn how readers integrate these facets to make meaning from print.
The Research-Based Consensus on Learning to Read
Several organizations and researchers have undertaken the task of reviewing the research on reading acquisition and instruction in order to reach consensus about what learning to read requires of students. Find out what this consensus is, and get a list of recent efforts to synthesize research that have contributed to building this consensus.
Top 10 Things You Should Know About Reading
Get information about learning to read and facts about reading difficulties in this overview of ten basic points about reading.
Is Reading Still Important in the Video Age?
Reading is the heart of education. The knowledge of almost every subject in school flows from reading.
About Reading: An Introduction
It's not an easy thing, learning to read. This article provides a brief overview of what is involved and what parents, teachers, and everyone else who touches the life of a child can do to help those who struggle.
Findings of the National Reading Panel
According to research, some instructional methods for teaching reading are more effective than others. Find out what the National Reading Panel's review of the research revealed about best practices in reading instruction.
The Need to Read Has Never Been Greater
As difficult as life has been for illiterate Americans in the past, the economy of the near future will offer even fewer jobs for workers with poor reading skills. The Information Age and the advance of technology into daily life make the job prospects for poor readers bleaker than ever.
How to Help Every Child Become a Reader
When communities work together, they can improve the reading achievement of their children. Learn what efforts need to be made with preschool and school-aged children in order to improve reading achievement in America.
Children With Reading Disability
NICHD research on children with learning disabilities has shown that deficiencies in processing letter-sounds are at the heart of most reading problems. This article illustrates how letter-sound processing works, and describes strategies for teaching children this skill.
Developmentally appropriate research-based literacy instruction in the primary grades includes attention to a variety of areas. Learn what reading instruction looks like in such areas as word identification, writing, and spelling in this overview.
Identifying Risk Factors to Prevent Difficulties
There are certain characteristics of groups and individual children that increase their likelihood of struggling with reading. Find out how to use knowledge of these risk factors to help prevent reading problems for these children.
Research-Based Principles for Improving the Reading Achievement of America's Children
Learn ten lessons from research about the home and school experiences necessary for reading success in this concise overview.
Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children: Executive Summary
Reading is essential to success in our society. The ability to read is highly valued and important for social and economic advancement. Of course, most children learn to read fairly well. In this report, we are most concerned with the large numbers of children in America whose educational careers are imperiled because they do not read well enough to ensure understanding and to meet the demands of an increasingly competitive economy.
The Need to Change the Way Children are Taught to Read
Recent research has provided a clearer picture about reading difficulties and how to prevent them. This position paper of the International Dyslexia Association argues for reform in teacher preparation to reflect these research-based understandings.
How Do Children Learn to Read?
Learning how to read requires several complex accomplishments. Read about the challenges children face as they learn how sounds are connected to print, as they develop fluency, and as they learn to construct meaning from print.
"Learning about how children learn to read has helped me to approach reading with my children in a much more helpful way."
~ Traci A.
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Reading Rockets is a national multimedia project that offers research-based and best-practice information on teaching kids to read and helping those who struggle. It is an educational service of public television station WETA in Washington, D.C.
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© Copyright 2008. All rights reserved. Reading Rockets is funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs. Reading Rockets® is a registered trademark of WETA.
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