Today’s Literacy Headlines

Like worksheets, question cubes use pre-made question sets, but they lead to a much different kind of engagement by incorporating collaborative learning strategies. Research has shown repeatedly the value of interactions with others in student engagement. Collaborative learning increases social skills, promotes creativity, develops higher-level thinking skills, and overall leads to a better learning experience, which in turn leads to deep learning.

Leveled books have been a staple in early elementary reading instruction for more than two decades, with 61 percent of K-2 and special education teachers having said that they use them for small group work. But as the “science of reading” movement has spread, these texts have come under fire. Initially, they encourage students to guess at words rather than use their phonics skills, researchers say, which can prevent children from mapping the letter-sound connections that allow them to become fluent readers. A second problem is how they sort students into levels. 

Baseball is America’s game, one of our most enduring and exuberant inventions. The speed and finesse of its stars have inspired generations of young people. In a pair of new books set about a century ago, baseball is thrillingly played by two Black girls pursuing their passion in the face of tremendous obstacles. Both “hold fast to dreams,” as Langston Hughes exhorted, as well as to the line drives they dive to catch.

As an intervention teacher, I’m afforded an opportunity to advocate for students across their school day. By forming connections and letting them know I’m in their corner, I hope to build stronger relationships with them that give them motivation to work even harder or challenge themselves further. Of course, students can improve without this connection, but building relationships can accelerate this process. Kids want to work hard, learn how to read, feel confident, and meet their goals. 

High-quality out-of-school-time programs play an important role in children’s holistic development, extending and complementing their academic experiences in valuable ways. Research shows that participation in high-quality programs can improve academic outcomes — a critical benefit as school and district leaders decide what’s best for their students, and part of what made these programs such an appealing target for stimulus money. But what’s really special about them isn’t just the opportunity to improve academic skills. It’s that they are — simply put — fun. 

The Ship in the Window is the story of Mabel, the mouse, who lives in a little cabin on a lake. She lives with a boy and his father, whose prized possession is a model ship. Mabel dreams of taking the ship out on the lake, but the father doesn’t let anyone get near it. Until one night, Mabel finally gets her chance at adventure. The Ship in the Window is illustrated by Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell.

“A really important pillar of Norway’s early ed philosophy is the value of childhood in itself,” said Henrik D. Zachrisson, a professor at the Centre for Research on Equality in Education at the University of Oslo. “Early ed is supposed to be a place where children can be children and have the best childhood possible.” The government’s view isn’t that child care is a place to put children so parents can work, or even to prepare children for the rigors of elementary school. It’s about protecting childhood.

There’s no question that many American parents desperately need more support. Yet the surgeon general is missing one important strategy that is within the control of every parent: a look in the mirror. What if the ways in which we are parenting are making life harder on our kids and harder on us? What if by doing less, parents would foster better outcomes for children and parents alike?

If there’s a toddler in your life, chances are you know the name Sandra Boynton. Reading her board books to little ones at bedtime is part of the nightly ritual in homes across America. For our Weekend Spotlight series, John Yang visited Boynton on her farm in Connecticut.

Teachers of every content area can introduce place-based learning that encourages students to understand the vital importance of rivers in multiple contexts.

Oftentimes teachers and other adults can forget what it’s like to be a student learning information for the first time. Additionally, there are other issues that can influence the ability to retain information. “The more you know, the easier it is to learn new things,” said Daniel Willingham, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia. When children learn new information, their ability to take in that information is informed by their prior knowledge of a related topic.

There are concrete ways to support neurodivergent students right now and all year long that can decrease their stress and improve the likelihood of positive outcomes. Yes, these students have unique challenges. But each and every one of them also has unique strengths, and we have the opportunity to boost their confidence and nurture their strengths.

Roughly 1 in 5 children in the United States are estimated to be neurodivergent, with a range of learning and thinking differences. Those differences have nothing to do with intelligence—but derive from how their brains receive, process, and respond to information. For educators to more effectively support such students, they need to first understand some basic facts and figures. Here are data snapshots of five common types of neurodiversity and learning differences in students.

In the last few years, school districts across the country have seen significant declines in reading and math, leading to lower test scores. Parents of Black and Latino students, in particular, feel schools are failing their kids, and many young people have stopped attending class altogether. While students struggle, large school districts keep fiddling around the edges with incremental changes that won’t make a difference fast enough. Things are different in the Houston Independent School District. One year into the state intervention in the district, our results show meaningful growth for students and schools because we’ve embraced wholesale systemic transformation.  

As spooky season approaches, the master of children’s horror recommends creepy-crawly classics and modern thrills for young readers.

Parents can improve kids’ reading comprehension by limiting their screen time and sharing books with them. Children of parents who encourage reading perform better at reading comprehension and, equally significant, at understanding social experiences and creating mental constructions of others’ behavior. 

Authors John Schu, Jas Hammonds, Jonell Joshua and Elvira K. Gonzalez spoke at the Brooklyn Book Festival on representation in YA and children’s books. “Books can be the perfect prescription to let us know that we’re going to be okay,” said author and children’s librarian John Schu during a panel at the Brooklyn Book Festival. “Stories affirm our experiences.”

A bestselling author of books for young readers was announced Tuesday as one of 22 winners of the 2024 John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, widely known as the “genius grant.” Jason Reynolds ’05 will receive a $800,000, no-strings-attached award in recognition of his work “depicting the rich inner lives of kids of color and ensuring that they see themselves and their communities in literature,” the foundation said.

“Deficits-based” approach vs “strengths-based” — such drastically divergent approaches to neurodiversity can be confusing to classroom teachers aiming to find meaningful ways to support neurodiverse students. Many education experts advise that teachers should take a “middle-of-the-road” stance, espousing the benefits of a strengths-based approach to teaching neurodiverse students while cautioning against referring too readily to neurodiverse diagnoses as “superpowers.”

In celebration of Latinx Heritage Month, SLJ reviews director Shelley Diaz will speak with Newbery Medalist and National Ambassador of Young People’s Literature Meg Medina about Latinx representation in children’s literature, her most recent picture book,  No More Señora Mimí, upcoming projects, and more on Monday, October 14 from 1 to 2 p.m. ET. Medina is the 2019 Newbery Medal winner for Merci Suárez Changes Gears. 

To better support my fifth-grade multilingual students, I started to incorporate strategies that I learned through Guided Language Acquisition Design (GLAD) into our small groups. Project GLAD is a teaching method that uses diverse strategies to help bilingual students learn both content and language at the same time. With just a few strategies, I noticed an increase in engagement as measured by participation. 

While tutors can facilitate the reading process, students need to be self-motivated. Tutors can help students pronounce words and teach them the basic building blocks of reading. However, if students don’t read on their own time, they can’t take their skills to the next level. That’s why it’s so important for teachers and families to impart kids with a love of reading. The combination of phonics and a genuine interest in reading creates lifelong learners.

Education Week interviewed five high school students who attend Jemicy School, an independent co-ed school for grades 1-12 in Baltimore that specializes in serving students with dyslexia and related language-based learning differences. The students opened up about their individual journeys with dyslexia, explained what the diagnosis has come to mean to them, and offered some advice for teachers.

Whether a student has dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, or any other neurodivergent condition that makes learning harder for them, such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, it helps for them to have a basic understanding of why they struggle to learn or do things when their neurotypical peers don’t. It can improve students’ confidence and their ability to advocate for themselves in the classroom, which is an especially important skill when they get into high school, college, and the workforce, say experts.

The data indicates that of 10,225 public K-12 students ages 3 to 21 who were tested last year for a specific learning disability in the area of reading, 4,747 students (46.43%) were eligible for special education services. More than one-fourth of students in grades K-3 were placed on a reading improvement plan in the 2023-24 school year. Of those, 22,538 students (94.64%) were reported to improve during the year.

Works by Ada Limón and Peter Sís, Randy Cecil, Lucy Ruth Cummins and more depict the poetry, wonder and droll humor inspired by the great beyond.

St. Louis is a poor city. Its school district serves a higher share of children living in poverty than 95% of communities nationwide. Decades of research has shown that growing up in poverty hurts academic outcomes. So what can reasonably be expected of children in places like St. Louis? Through no fault of their own, they are more likely to have lower reading and math scores. But how much lower? Based on demographics, 31% of the city’s third graders should be reading at grade level. The actual number is 20%.

When 19-year-old Aleysha Ortiz told Hartford City Council members in May that the public school system stole her education, she had to memorize her speech. Ortiz, who was a senior at Hartford Public High School at the time, wrote the speech using the talk-to-text function on her phone. She listened to it repeatedly to memorize it. That’s because she was never taught to read or write — despite attending schools in Hartford since she was 6. Ortiz, who came to Hartford from Puerto Rico with her family when she was young, struggled with language and other challenges along the way.

Just as technology has transformed the way we conduct research, it has also opened new possibilities for enhancing our educational practices. Similarly, the rise of generative AI presents countless opportunities for innovation in education. To illustrate, I share a few practical applications of AI across different educational settings. These AI tools are designed to enhance the teaching process, saving valuable time while ensuring that tasks such as creating rubrics, developing questions, and communicating with families are handled efficiently.

Across New York City, schools have changed curriculum materials and teaching strategies, a significant shift in a system where school leaders have long held autonomy over instructional choices. The mandate has prompted a torrent of debate and discussion—cautious optimism, on the one hand, that a standardized approach will lead to better outcomes; skepticism on the other that new materials will actually meet students’ needs, and fear that implementation challenges could derail the entire project.

A new graphic novel makes a powerful case that if these two men had never met, 20th-century pop culture might have taken an entirely different course. “The Mythmakers” takes us through 20 years of deep intellectual friendship between Lewis and Tolkien — which widened to include the social circle around them, known as the Inklings — but it’s just as interesting when documenting the slow, regrettable shipwreck of that friendship. 

In new book, child development expert Dan Wuori dismantles notion of early child care as a form of ‘industrialized’ babysitting. Wuori says babies learn from birth and their time outside the home should be treated as schooling, not as a place for them to be watched over while their parents work. “All environments for young children are learning environments,” he said. “The question ultimately comes down to, “Is your child in a good one?”

Exit tickets help students take responsibility for the content they’ve learned and encourage students to reflect about important concepts from class. They also serve as a formative assessment, providing immediate feedback for both teachers and students, and even allow teachers to check in on students’ social and emotional well-being. These ideas for using exit tickets for formative assessment and to quickly see how students are feeling may be particularly helpful for new teachers.

Just like many areas of reading instruction, we can look to the research to understand more about the relationship between foundational skills and reading motivation. A recent meta-analysis of motivation and reading achievement found that, on average across over 132 studies, early reading was a stronger predictor of later motivation than early motivation was of later reading (Toste et al., 2020). In other words, children’s skill in reading is likely to help drive their motivation over time, but their motivation may not drive their growth in skill to the same level over time. Highly motivated young readers need knowledge and skills, not only motivation, to drive their continued growth in reading.

When it comes to the topic of how to teach early reading, teachers have plenty to say. Their responses point towards a wide level of understanding and interpretation of what the term science of reading means and how to use it to inform teaching. A number of educators have cited concerns about the implementation of shifts in how kids are taught to read, such as a loss of autonomy for teachers. Many question whether it’s a tried-and-true strategy, or just great marketing. But plenty of teachers are taking quite well to the strategy. Educators in this camp are sharing examples of the strategy at work, giving tips for fellow teachers on what activities to try, and even attesting to how the “science of reading” has led to them replace activities that have, in some cases, been in classrooms for generations.

The English language instruction students encounter can run the gamut from submersion — where they “sink or swim” in all-English classes — to programs where literacy and subject matter is taught equally in English and a home language. While not all emergent bilinguals — as they’re also called — are immigrants, some districts may offer programs or schools for students who are new to the country.

Decades of research have shown that children who are born into low-income households have less access to opportunities like high-quality child care and afterschool activities. Now, a 26-year longitudinal study has quantified the severity of this opportunity gap for the first time, as well as the sizable impact this has on children as they grow into young adults. Researchers found that while most high-income children experience six or more “opportunities” between birth and high school, nearly two-thirds of children from low-income households have zero or only one opportunity.

This time — more than 25 years after “Frindle” — the conflict is between Josh Willett, a tech-obsessed programming whiz, and his eccentric, technophobic sixth-grade E.L.A. teacher, Mr. N, also known as Mr. Allen Nicholas. In Mr. N’s class, laptops and e-books are forbidden, and essays must be written (neatly!) on lined paper, in blue or black ink. It’s no wonder Josh dreads his latest homework assignment. But circumstances quickly shift when he stumbles on an old Frindle while looking for a spare pen in his mom’s desk. This leads to an intriguing hypothesis: Might Mr. N be Nick Allen of Frindle fame?

The seven schools ranged widely. Some were large. Some were small. Some were city schools with many Hispanic students. Others were mostly white, rural schools. They used different instructional materials and did a lot of things differently, but TNTP teased out three traits that it thought these schools had in common: “… these schools shared a commitment to doing three core things well: they create a culture of belonging, deliver consistent grade-level instruction, and build a coherent instructional program.

Transitional books are in transition. To bolster these books’ appeal for emerging and newly independent readers, librarians are changing what they call them and how they shelve them, according to respondents to SLJ ’s 2024 Transitional Books Survey. And since an increasing number of transitional books are graphic novels, librarians are figuring out where to shelve those titles. With prose books? Other graphic novels? There are various solutions.

September 15th is the first day of Latine/Hispanic Heritage Month, so I’ve rounded up five new picture books and one board book by Latine authors and illustrators to check out this month. I’ll review middle grade books by Latine authors on Tuesday!

School libraries have undergone a significant shift over the years, adapting to changes in technology, education philosophies, and the dynamic needs of students. Once simply a quiet space to check out books, libraries have evolved to provide students with a holistic and interactive learning experience. These spaces have transformed into collaborative areas that encourage group work, discussions, and hands-on activities, promoting creativity and innovation–ultimately becoming instrumental in shaping well-rounded, adaptable learners. 

A slew of pandemic-era emergency aid for children—including universal school meals and Medicaid expansions in many states—led to the lowest child poverty rate on record. But new Census data show children—particularly children of color—have taken the brunt of the economic hit as those funds and flexibilities expire.

Antonio Brown, owner of Central Station Barbershop and Grooming in St. Petersburg, FL, is doing more than cutting hair—he’s shaping futures. With a mission to boost literacy rates among Black and Brown children in his community, Brown launched a book club that offers kids free haircuts as a reward for reading.

In my experiences supporting implementation over ten years, high-quality instructional materials have had less direct impact on instruction than I imagined they would but more impact on teacher support than I imagined they could. Changing perspective on why materials matter has changed what I see as important in their implementation. Because I believe their value lies primarily in improving teacher support.

By modeling self-talk and providing choices, teachers can encourage young children to think about their thinking. Rick Cohen and colleagues in The Metacognitive Preschooler provide valuable guidance with these 4 ways to engage young children: model self-talk, model parallel talk, ask choice questions, and ask open-ended questions.

After nearly twenty years of mandatory English-only education, California’s bilingual schools are growing because of family demand. By clarifying local priorities from the start in its Multilingual Learner Master Plan and insisting on treating Spanish proficiency and English proficiency alike as valuable assets, the Desert Sands Unified School District is taking advantage of new terrain California voters opened up in 2016. 

As educators, we are continuously searching for ways to create environments that enhance learning. One way is through biophilic design, rooted in the idea that humans have an inherent connection to nature. This approach, popularized by Richard Louv, emphasizes integrating natural elements into spaces to boost well-being and cognitive function. Here is how I’ve transformed my elementary school classroom.

With “Amazing Grapes,” the legendary cartoonist has composed a wondrous hymn to what’s lost and found. “Amazing Grapes” tells the story of two siblings, Curly and his sister Pearlie, whose adventures begin a year after their father walks out. Their mother has informed them and their older sister, Shirley, that they’re going to have a new father, named Lenny (who has three “younger than you” children: Penny, Benny and Kenny), and soon they’ll all be living with him on a mountaintop halfway across the country.

A year after Texas turned school libraries into discipline centers in Black and Latino neighborhoods, librarians have lost their jobs and teachers are quitting. Demonstrators gather in August 2023 in protest of Houston ISD’s plan to close libraries in schools. Instead, they would become “team centers,” where teachers would send disruptive students to work independently. The most high-achieving students would be funneled there, too, where they could do worksheets at their own pace and free up teachers to focus on everyone else.

Author and entrepreneur Dr. Shawn Anthony Robinson describes to host Anita Rao how he learned to read at age 18 and how his struggles with literacy affected his mental health and sense of worth growing up. Shawn is the co-author of the graphic novel series, “Doctor Dyslexia Dude!,” which he and his wife wrote to show dyslexic Black boys their potential to do great things. Anita also talks with Dr. Maryanne Wolf, a human development and psychology scholar and the Director of the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners and Social Justice at UCLA, about how our brains actually learn to read and the interventions currently available to help dyslexic readers of all ages.

As poverty rises, reading proficiency tends to fall. But it’s not fate. In this interactive article, see the districts in your state that are outperforming expectations. The authors set out to find districts around the country that succeed with the students they actually serve. They calculated each district’s expected reading proficiency rate, based on its local poverty rate, and compared it to its actual third grade reading scores. This methodology helped identify districts that are beating the odds and successfully teaching kids to read.  

Teaching multilingual students about Greek and Latin roots in words can help them systematically build their knowledge of English. Breaking words into parts helped students generate the meaning of unfamiliar words. This was especially true when I chose Greek and Latin roots that had English and Spanish cognates.

So what’s the trick to getting young people – and teens and 10-year-olds – to enjoy the act of reading? To stay in the moment long enough to appreciate the feel of paper pages and a cliff-hanger chapter? What can parents and teachers do? Educators the Monitor reached out to as the school year gears up have lots of advice: Set aside dedicated time for reading. Find materials that resonate with students. Offer a welcoming setting. Give students the chance to talk about what they’ve read. 

Ready or not, across the country, a new crop of kindergarteners has entered the K-12 school system. Their teachers will spend these early weeks determining where the 5- and 6-year-olds are developmentally, what academic, social and emotional skills they bring, and what support they need to set them up for a successful school year. The last few classes of kindergarteners have shown up lacking some of the basic skills and competencies that educators and school leaders had previously come to expect. These include following instructions, sharing, listening and participating during lessons, using writing utensils and craft materials, and toilet training.

“A primary source at its very core is the raw material of history,” said Lee Ann Potter, the Director of Professional Learning and Outreach Initiatives at the Library of Congress. Many students today are learning history through primary sources. That shift, according to Potter, arose in the last two decades as museums and archival institutions began digitizing their collections, making them accessible to teachers and students online. At the Library of Congress, Potter and her team develop resources to help teachers use primary sources in their classrooms. 

This summer, the Durango district enrolled about 10 students in the program for four weeks before the school year started. Such programs fill a critical need for families and educators across the state. Colorado districts enrolled thousands of newly arrived immigrant students throughout the last school year. Teachers in places like Denver, Aurora, and Jeffco have described feeling overwhelmed at times by the arrival of so many new students, and the experience has prompted changes across schools. The same has happened in rural Durango, a district of about 5,200 students where about 4% of students identify as English learners.

Earlier this year, the prolific writer Percival Everett released a critically acclaimed novel, “James,” that adopts as its conceit the story of Jim from “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” as told by Jim himself. Though its intended audience is very different from that of “James,” Hope Jahren’s first novel and first book for young readers, “Adventures of Mary Jane,” tries something similar. It’s framed as the first-person story of a much less prominent — one might say fairly minor — character from “Huckleberry Finn”: the object of Huck’s affection over the course of about 50 pages in Mark Twain’s 1884 classic.

An analysis from Rand and CRPE estimates 19% — or 9.4 million students — were chronically absent during the 2023-24 school year. About one-quarter (23%) of school districts surveyed said none of the strategies they put in place to combat chronic absenteeism have been particularly effective. Rand and CRPE recommended three approaches suggested by district leaders and researchers.

Sweeping changes to literacy instruction are underway in New York City, with all elementary schools for the first time using one of three mandated curriculums this September. By requiring instruction in line with long-standing research about how children learn to read, known as the science of reading, the city is hoping to boost its literacy rates. Just under half of students in grades 3-8 are considered proficient in English, according to state exams.