Today’s Literacy Headlines

In April 2021, the N.C. General Assembly passed the Excellent Public Schools Act of 2021. Implementation of the law started in schools and districts with Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS)® training, which includes 160 hours of study across eight units and takes two years to complete, equipping teachers with instructional tools based on decades of research into the science of reading.  For the third year in a row, North Carolina’s kindergarten through third grade students outperformed the national average on end-of-year literacy assessments.

Teachers can encourage students to persist through challenges and share their stories by modeling the power of writing using picture books. Sharing books that connect to the writing process, demonstrate the benefits of writing, and highlight how authors craft stories can show students that writing is worth the risk-taking and challenges they may face in your classroom. Additionally, using these books as springboards that scaffold student writing can be an efficient and effective way to build a community of writers in your classroom.

A new wave of research over the past decade has looked at how much parents talk about numbers and shapes with their children, and whether these spontaneous and natural conversations help children learn the subject. Encouraging parents to talk about numbers could be a cheap and easy way to improve the nation’s dismal math performance. A team of researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and the University of California, Irvine, teamed up to summarize the evidence from 22 studies conducted between 2010 and 2022. Here are four takeaways from their meta-analysis.

Routine low-stakes writing should be part of every student’s literacy diet. Ungraded and low-pressure, this type of writing improves kids’ writing stamina and builds language fluency, says Rebecca Alber, an instructor at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education. Across grade levels, engaging and creative writing prompts encourage kids to explore their opinions, reflect on experiences, and build strong arguments.

Before there was a feature film or a book, there was Crockett Johnson. Harold first appeared in 1955 and has been a familiar presence on bookshelves ever since. He is not quite as famous as the Cat in the Hat, who arrived two years later; he is certainly less of a show-off. Johnson, far less prolific than Seuss, never became a household name or a pop-culture brand. Harold is another story. 

Educators and parents of students with intellectual and developmental disabilities are optimistic about artificial intelligence’s potential to create more inclusive classrooms and close educational gaps between students with disabilities and those without, concludes a report from the Special Olympics Global Center for Inclusion in Education. However, both groups are also concerned about the possibility that AI use in schools could decrease human interaction and that schools with fewer resources could be left behind, the report found.

Writing for an audience — even just a single reader — can have a positive impact on students’ motivation and enjoyment when completing writing assignments, particularly if they have someone in mind while writing. By thinking about who may be reading what they’re writing, students will consider how they craft an assignment, whether that’s jotting down thoughts in a journal, finishing an essay that will be read by their teacher, or creating materials shared with peers, said writing expert Steve Graham. 

While children’s stories and rhymes that serve up spoonfuls of comfort are nothing new either, a growing number of post-pandemic picture books seem precision-tooled to pre-empt specific childhood fears with soft-edged scenarios that encourage and reassure. These two books about falling and being scarily on one’s own exemplify the well-meaning but sometimes overly message-y trend.

Starting around three and a half years of age, most children can comprehend simple stories and fairy tales. Audiobooks can be particularly useful during car rides, bedtime routine and quiet playtime. For school-aged children, they can engage reluctant readers by providing an alternative way to experience books. And most importantly, they can nurture kids’ intellectual growth – much more than videos. Here are five ways that audiobooks can enhance children’s ability to learn.

As we prepare for a new school year, we have an opportunity to make our classroom spaces function in allyship with our students. Small changes and a deliberate setup can positively impact students’ focus, independence, and performance. In fact, research shows that factors like light, greenery, and even the height of the ceiling can impact human behavior. A tweak to your desk setup can also significantly increase student engagement. Leaning on concepts of Universal Design for Learning and executive function, we’ll explore easy ways to set up a brain-friendly room. 

Dramatically reducing chronic absenteeism requires attention to “everything, everywhere, all at once” to understand and address the ecosystem of root causes identified by Attendance Works that include barriers to attendance, disengagement from school, aversion to school, and misconception about the impact of absences. We propose a three-pronged approach that includes re-engaging students, supporting families, and generating timely data. 

For some authors, finding their book on a “banned” list can feel almost like a badge of honor, putting them right there with classics like The Bluest Eye and To Kill a Mockingbird. But the reality is, most banned books never get the kind of recognition or readership that the most famous ones do. And books by underrepresented authors have been disproportionately targeted by bans.

Dr. Gary Willow writes about how he’s brought in support and built homegrown expertise to boost literacy skills in Maryland. Bringing the science of reading to the classroom requires careful research, strong collaboration and consensus-building, aligned professional learning, and robust ongoing support for school leaders.

Boxes of new science of reading workbooks sit at the front of classrooms at East Woods Intermediate School in Hudson, Ohio, ready for teachers to start using when students return to school next month. Like a third of the 600 districts across the state, the Hudson schools near Cleveland didn’t use science of reading books until Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and the state legislature ordered districts last summer to implement the curriculum by the 2024-25 school year.

“Tree. Table. Book” and “Not Nothing” feature young people whose friendships with the very old unlock fading memories. What’s seven decades between friends? The narrator of Lois Lowry’s “Tree. Table. Book”, 11-year-old Sophia Henry Winslow (who calls herself Sophie), has a best friend who’s 88 years old — another Sophie, last name Gershowitz, who lives next door to her in their small New Hampshire town. In spite of the age gap, the two have “a friendship of the heart,” as Sophie the younger puts it.

Juicy sentences, a term used by Charles and Lily Wong Filmore, describes rich, complex, meaning-packed sentences that students closely examine with teacher guidance. Breaking one complex sentence down into small parts enhances students’ awareness of vocabulary, syntax, and sentence structure.

A little boy goes on a quest — into two very different forests — to discover the truth about dragons. “You must put your favorite cloak around your shoulders and your sturdiest boots upon your feet,” Julie Leung writes in her Caldecott Honor children’s book. Leung was grappling with the idea of her son growing up feeling like he needed to choose between cultures — his mom’s Chinese heritage or his father’s American heritage. So she turned to folklore. “There’s such different interpretations of the dragon mythology between Eastern and Western cultures,” Leung says, “it’s a perfect metaphor.” To depict the two mythologies, Hanna Cha illustrated the book in two completely different styles.

Loren Long has illustrated books by Barack Obama, Madonna and Amanda Gorman. His No. 1 best seller, “The Yellow Bus,” took him in a different direction — one that required time, patience and toothpicks. In his telling, the bus goes through five incarnations. First it delivers children to school. Then it transports the elderly to the library. Later, parked in a quiet corner of a city, the bus becomes a shelter for people with nowhere else to go. Eventually the bus gets towed to a field near a river and the goats move in.

Many parents want more structured summer programs for their children, but they cite the programs’ cost as a major reason for their lack of participation, concludes a new report. The demand for more summer learning opportunities comes as parents, educators, and policymakers look for ways to help kids catch up on academic skills, and improve their social, emotional, and mental health.

Virtual field trips have always offered engaging and innovative alternatives to in-person field trips that are either too cost-prohibitive or geographically impossible to visit. Students can see large-scale processes up close, explore outer space, go back in time to visit ancient civilizations, or travel to different countries to see famous landmarks. 

Every year, school districts across the country spend millions of dollars on curricula, the planned sequences of materials teachers use to guide instruction. But many teachers say those materials don’t always work well — at least not without changes. Teachers say curricula aren’t culturally relevant or inclusive, don’t prioritize a student’s perspective, ability and experience and seem to be created by providers who are removed from the classroom. In some cases, teachers say a lack of professional development on how to implement a curriculum can make it hard to use.  

At the beginning of each month, 4-year-old Ada Caldwell, 4,  runs to the mailbox to see what new book is inside. The free books are sent to Ada’s mid-Missouri home by the Imagination Library, a nationwide program that singer Dolly Parton started in 1995 to send books to any child under 5 who registers, regardless of  family income. The idea is to foster reading early in a child’s life. By 2016, Imagination Library was sending a million books a month to children around the globe.

Last year, my school district aimed to raise literacy scores by 10 percent as measured by DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills. Here are the strategies that helped our students become more engaged and successful in their reading: invest in research-based Tier 1 (whole class) literacy programs; build your decodable text library; regularly monitor progress; provide frequent distributed practice of skills; create cozy reading corners in classrooms; and host joyful schoolwide celebrations.

Elementary students in Indianapolis Public Schools will learn English language arts with a new curriculum this coming school year that emphasizes background knowledge and foundational skills. The district is switching to the Amplify Core Knowledge curriculum in time for the state deadline for all schools to adopt reading curriculums based on the science of reading by the 2024-25 school year. 

Summer reading can increase your child’s literacy skills. But literacy experts say things like the traditional focus on reading books from a lengthy list shouldn’t be students’ sole goal when school is out. Instead, they say, parents should also be reinforcing other language skills that bolster literacy.

As they tune in to see newer events like breaking, skateboarding and surfing at the July 26-Aug. 11 Games, students can exercise math, science and English language arts skills — often without even realizing they are learning. Here are a few ways to channel learning activities into summer classes, or when students return to school in the fall.

Perhaps you’ve tried implementing literacy stations and it collapsed. Or perhaps excessive noise and motion gave you a headache. Or maybe you’re not sure the students are actually learning. You want to do stations, but it’s hard. Beyond a basic knowledge of what stations “should” look like, teachers struggle with implementation. Here are some ways to work on your stations routine during your reading block. Follow these steps and you should have effortlessly flowing rotations… if you stay consistent. 

Inclusive classrooms with specially designed instruction can benefit students with and without disabilities, two early childhood educators say.

How to integrate the science of reading, plan for effective review sessions with your students, think about inquiry-based learning, and more. Our understanding of what works in classrooms has shifted considerably in the last decade. Cognitive scientists have used powerful new technologies to peer into the learning brain, revealing the critical—and often underestimated—importance of downtime and brain breaks. Other researchers, meanwhile, have pored over hundreds of experimental studies to identify outstanding practices teachers can count on, and quantified the benefits when those practices are applied with fidelity.

The welcome and overdue shift to teach phonics explicitly and to align instruction more broadly with research from cognitive psychology and neuroscience has seen only green lights ahead and tailwinds in the last few years, but an important caution is being offered by one key figure in the movement. Margaret Goldberg, a teacher and co-founder of the Right to Read Project, has expressed concerns that weaknesses in implementation threaten the momentum behind “SoR.” Worse still, those threats are going mostly undiscussed for fear that speaking up will damage, slow, or setback the science of reading.

The reading “wars” have heated up again, but most teachers—and our students—could probably benefit from a “cease-fire.” These posts offer suggestions to find a path forward in ways that can support all teachers and students alike.

Starting around three and a half years of age, most children can comprehend simple stories and fairy tales. Audiobooks can be particularly useful during car rides, bedtime routine and quiet playtime. For school-aged children, they can engage reluctant readers by providing an alternative way to experience books. And most importantly, they can nurture kids’ intellectual growth – much more than videos. Here are five ways that audiobooks can enhance children’s ability to learn.

When students didn’t come back to Maple Elementary after COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, Niki Espinoza, the school’s community school coordinator, noticed right away. Espinoza found a study by a Stanford education researcher that showed that sending mailers to parents about their child’s attendance could reduce absenteeism. Espinoza decided to try it out. Her experimentation revealed three insights that are pivotal in addressing absenteeism: Parents aren’t informed about the effect absences have on their child’s education, parents often don’t know how many days of school their child has missed, and schools must be prepared to address the root causes of absences.

Sometimes we forget that moving is not just about goodbyes. It’s also about hellos. These nine picture books, listed alphabetically — some brand-new and all published within the last 10 years — communicate to children that while moving has its costs, it can have benefits as well.

How do we ensure that our multilingual students are developing critical literacy skills in the target language as well as in English? As districts work to provide systematic phonics instruction, it is important to keep our perspective inclusive and ensure that we maintain a holistic approach to literacy instruction.

Until recently, there has been little good evidence for the effectiveness of online tutoring, where students and tutors interact via video, text chat and whiteboards. Now, some new U.S. studies could offer useful guidance to educators. Results indicate that tutoring via video, text chat and whiteboards can be effective, but the large gains of in-person tutoring don’t always translate to the virtual world.

During class, you might ask a student to say the morning message, share about their weekend, discuss a topic with a classmate, or even practice reading aloud. Their days are filled with speaking. With some practical tools from drama education, we can certainly help our students with their communication. As early as preschool, students can learn how to improve their speaking skills using techniques borrowed from actors.

Administrators eager to facilitate early community-building and social and emotional learning discussions on the topic of substitute teachers can invest in a small picture-book library (see below) that puts this topic front and center. Using the familiar platform of the daily read-aloud, students and teachers can consider a book’s story and illustrations to prompt questions and concerns associated with their own classroom protocols if their homeroom teacher is absent. Offering this list as a resource to parents/caregivers could additionally offer comfort and the opportunity for parents to continue the discussion at home.

The science of learning tells us that restoring children’s opportunities for joyful, intentional play—using a rigorous, research-based approach called Playful Learning—has the potential to improve children’s academic and social-emotional outcomes, at a time when doing so is particularly important. Decades of research on the science of Playful Learning show that children benefit most from a “balanced diet” of play opportunities across a spectrum of playful instruction, guided play, and free play.

After ranking 44th in the nation for inclusionary practices—defined by how many students with disabilities are learning alongside their general education peers—Washington state began working to change that trajectory. Here’s how it’s working to improve the experience of special education students in K-12, and the research behind its efforts.

Why do so many young children struggle with word problems in math? Researchers believe one reason is that students often learn to interpret word problems by focusing on key words such as “and” or “total.” Relying too much on key words can lead students astray, particularly because word problems get more complex as students go through school. Because these types of math problems require so many skills beyond number manipulation — like reading and executive function, for example — excelling at word problems is a good indicator that a student is doing well in school overall.

The effort includes $90 million in grants awarded to more than 250 schools to adjust curriculum and support teacher training. It provides funding for the adoption of literacy strategies “that are developmentally appropriate, culturally responsive, and grounded in the science of reading and writing,” said Angelica Cruz, director of literacy at the Oregon Department of Education.

Classroom “churn” — when students leave a classroom midyear or new students join — can have a negative effect on third grade reading scores, according to a new study that examined Colorado census and state standardized test data. Classroom churn was one of many factors examined in the study, called “Social Factors of Academic Success.” 

PJ Library is a fantastic non-profit that sends 240,000 free high-quality books to children across North America each month. They’ve shared some handy tips with us to seamlessly integrate reading into your summer activities. Because if you’ve happened to read the #1 New York Times Bestseller, The Anxious Generation, then you know how important a “non-phone based childhood” is. 

As a new law goes into effect in Indiana that could lead to an increase in the number of students who are held back because they don’t pass the IREAD-3, it will likely have the greatest impact on students who come from low-income families. Research isn’t clear on how the tougher retention criteria will likely affect these students in the long run. But education advocates are optimistic that the other provisions of the law — like earlier identification, intervention, and summer school — will make a positive impact on their reading skills long before third grade.

Summer learning programs aren’t new, but in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and continued learning loss and student achievement gaps, these programs are on the rise. Because of the rise in usage of summer programs, NWEA researchers evaluated the current studies and identified 10 recommendations district leaders should consider regarding their design and implementation.

After switching its elementary reading curriculum to one aligned with the science of reading, Denver Public Schools is celebrating an increase in the percentage of kindergarten through third grade students who ended the school year reading on grade level. But the test scores are still below pre-pandemic levels — a vexing outcome the district is acknowledging by adopting a new intervention program to help the most struggling learners. Studies show that students who don’t read proficiently by third grade are less likely to graduate.

To the naked eye, a reader’s notebook is an ordinary spiral-bound notebook. However, over the course of a school year in my classroom, the notebook takes on its own identity. It becomes a space for students to reflect on what they are reading, and when students look back over their entries, they witness their growth as readers. The notebooks allow me, as a teacher, to take a genuine look at what reading strategies students absorb and what books they’re interested in.

Family members and summer instructors should think strategically if they want to help children hang onto what they’ve learned. In interviews with USA TODAY, education experts and school leaders offered five key ways to avoid backsliding. They said adults should encourage kids to read books, use technology to stay fresh on math equations and take kids on field trips to local museums where they can apply their science and math skills and learn new ones.

Two recent reports from Education Reform Now highlight strategies that high-poverty schools across Massachusetts and Colorado are implementing to drive higher academic achievement: ‘obsession’ with data, tiered supports, teacher development, and family engagement. High-performing schools use data as a guiding light to drive, monitor, and improve not just student achievement but every aspect of their operations. 

Mac Barnett has written more than 30 picture books and is a co-creator, with Jon Klassen, of the series “Shape Island.” Here, he reviews two new picture books [that] consider the playground, where so many children first figure out their place in the world, and “where a kid named Ryan made me swallow a rock when I was 4.”

Whether it’s a cozy corner in your living room or a special space in your child’s bedroom, creating a summer reading environment for your kids will inspire them to read and make diving into books even more enjoyable. This helps children experience reading as a fun summer activity — like going to the pool or playing outside — rather than something they have to do for homework, in which they might log reading by minutes and pages. As you begin to plan and brainstorm ideas for your child’s summer reading area, here are five tips to keep in mind.

Shared experiences and teacher direction are necessary for high-quality instruction and a well-run classroom. Over time, I pieced together the idea that my students would benefit most from a teaching model that emphasized shared readings of challenging works of literature; memorization of poetry; explicit grammar instruction; contextual knowledge, including history; and teacher direction — not time practicing skills.

If you scroll through the average student’s digital textbook or reading, you will probably see multi-colored streaks scattered everywhere. However, new research reveals that excessive highlighting may do more harm than good. Notably, the group with limited highlights scored the highest on the reading comprehension test, with scores 11% higher than the unlimited highlights, and 19% higher than the no highlights groups. This difference is equivalent to one to two letter grades. 

The science of reading is generally used as a catch all expression for the body of research that helps teachers understand what students need to be taught to become effective readers. It is a multi-disciplinary body of research and knowledge from education, linguistics, cognitive psychology, special education, and neuroscience. This article unpacks the 6 key components that make up the science of reading.

Studies say students lose on average a month of learning every summer, known as the “summer slide” so NBC’s Vicky Nguyen joins TODAY to share activities and tips for parents and kids to stay sharp as a family all year long. 

While schools and school libraries are the official institutions responsible for educating our future generations, public libraries are one of the best community resources that schools can partner with to improve students’ literacy outcomes. Libraries are “educational support centers” rich in resources that can enhance learning. They offer not just a plethora of books in many languages but also literacy-focused programs for different age groups. Schools and the wider community must leverage these services if they want to see improvement in children’s reading and writing skills.

New data points to the pandemic’s profound and enduring effects on the nation’s youngest public school children, many of whom were not yet in a formal school setting when COVID hit. Researchers and other experts have suggested several potential reasons for this trend. One is that the pandemic disrupted early childhood education and made it harder for many kids to learn foundational skills — gaps that can compound over time. Fewer children enrolled in preschool and kindergarten, and many young children struggled with remote learning. Increased parental stress and screen time may also be factors.

A couple of years ago, Carlos Matias was living in Florida and feeling nostalgic for his hometown. “I just started writing little short stories about New York,” Matias says. “And then I started submitting them to the New York Times Metropolitan Diary.” His short story, Emergency Quarters, became a “Best of the Year” finalist in 2021 and this year, a children’s book. “Growing up, when I first started to walk to school by myself, my mom would give me a quarter every single day,” Matias says. She’d tell him, “‘If you need me, or if you’re going to come home late, or if you’re going to hang out with your friends, give me a call and let me know.’  Emergency Quarters is about a little boy named Ernesto who, like Matias, gets to walk to school without his parents for the first time.

Jacque Daughtry, CEO of Literacy Now, a Houston-based nonprofit focused on teaching children reading skills, said even a few-month learning gap can grow exponentially and especially hinder students who have already fallen behind. “If you’re losing that amount of time over the summer, then it builds every year,” Daughtry says. “Especially for a child who was already a little bit behind or a lot behind, it just keeps widening.” With the pandemic dropping student test scores to historic lows, this effect has become even more concerning. Here are just some resources and tips that can help mitigate this steep summer slide.