The scientific evidence base on how we learn to read and how to best teach reading has been growing and converging over 40 years. This includes brain imaging studies that show how our brains learn to read and underlying causes of why some students have difficulty learning read.

Sadly, teachers often do not have access to this evidence base. Many teachers report that their preservice education in college did little to prepare them for teaching reading. Many veteran teachers report a lack of quality professional development once hired that could help them improve their reading instruction. And for too long, the reading wars have confused teachers and administrators. These wars started in the 1990's when whole language advocates succeeded in convincing too many schools that learning to read comes naturally without the need for explicit instruction in decoding skills. Even today, there are many reading "experts" that say they promote a "balanced" approach to beginning instruction, but what that actually represents is a little bit of incidental phonics thrown in on top of the same approaches to reading instruction that have not worked for the past 25 years. The latest scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as the nation's report card, were just released—and things aren't looking good for the country's young readers. 

There are a number of key changes in the new law. Here at Keys to Literacy we are most interested in the LEARN part of the legislation: Literacy Education For All, Results for the Nation.

The program addresses reading and writing instruction across ALL grades and ages – i.e., birth through grade 12...

The article is based on his new book Raising Kids Who Read, which I decided to purchase after reading the article. In both pieces, Willingham addresses the challenge for parents and teachers to get children, especially teens, to read more....

W#4: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.....

The author of the piece, Annie Murphy Paul, notes that the practice of leveling students’ reading material so that teachers can adjust the difficulty of text to suit the ability and skills of the reader is very popular and has been around for over sixty years....

I decided to start with the work of Jan Hasbrouck, a friend and colleague who I believe knows more about fluency than any other educator in the country. Together with her colleague, Gerald Tindal, Jan developed the first set of national norms for oral reading fluency performance in 1992. They updated and presented the norms in 2006 in an article: Oral Reading Fluency Norms: A Valuable Assessment Tool for Reading Teachers...

I just added this new word: “jonesing”, which means “craving, wanting really badly” (InternetSlang.com) and “to have a strong need or desire for something” (urbandictionary.com). I met the word via a friend who has used it several times in writing and conversation, as in an email message that noted “I am jonesing to go skiing in the mountains.”....

Often in training I get the following question: How many topic webs should I make? I keep waiting for the rest of the question. Are teachers asking how many to make over the course of a semester? Are they asking me what the expectation is from their administrators? I hope they are asking me how many top-down topic webs are needed for kids to be successful using them independently to support their comprehension, and that is how I respond.....

Seeding Reading offers a series of articles and analysis aimed at answering this question: Given that today’s children are surrounded by digital media of all kinds, how will they learn to read?

Here are two of the articles posted on the site which is hosted by New America’s Education Policy Program and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop...

Most people I meet who are not educators are surprised to learn that only about a third of America’s students read at a proficient level or above (NAEP Reading Scores). Susan’s report reviews the details of the process these states went through to pass legislation and support implementation of these literacy laws. Building improved knowledge about effective literacy instruction is a key element in all three laws, as is a focus on early reading instruction to try and catch young children before they experience failure. Unfortunately, as the report notes, passing legislation is not sufficient to make a difference – consistency in implementation of literacy laws is what’s needed....

Here is a link to my archived webinar titled “A Best-Practices Instructional Routine for Writing in the Content Areas”...

The article includes suggestions for how parents can help their children develop categorizing and main idea skills. It also presents an overview of the two-column note format that students can use when they are reading for homework...