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Building on the best of existing state standards, the Common Core State Standards provide clear and consistent learning goals to help prepare students for college, career, and life. The standards clearly demonstrate what students are expected to learn at each grade level, so that every parent and teacher can understand and support their learning.
The standards are:

1. Research and evidence based

2. Clear, understandable, and consistent

3. Aligned with college and career expectations

4. Based on rigorous content and the application of knowledge through higher-order thinking skills

5. Built upon the strengths and lessons of current state standards

6. Informed by other top-performing countries to prepare all students for success in our global economy and society

According to the best available evidence, the mastery of each standard is essential for success in college, career, and life in today's global economy.

With students, parents, and teachers all on the same page and working together toward shared goals, we can ensure that students make progress each year and graduate from high school prepared to succeed in college, career, and life.

The standards focus on core concepts and procedures starting in the early grades, which gives teachers the time needed to teach them and gives students the time needed to master them.

The standards draw on the most important international models, as well as research and input from numerous sources, including educators from kindergarten through college, state departments of education, scholars, assessment developers, professional organizations, parents and students, and members of the public.

Because their design and content have been refined through successive drafts and numerous rounds of state feedback, the standards represent a synthesis of the best elements of standards-related work in all states and other countries to date.

For grades K-8, grade-by-grade standards exist in English language arts/literacy and mathematics. For grades 9-12, the standards are grouped into grade bands of 9-10 grade standards and 11-12 grade standards.

While the standards set grade-specific goals, they do not define how the standards should be taught or which materials should be used to support students. States and districts recognize that there will need to be a range of supports in place to ensure that all students, including those with special needs and English language learners, can master the standards. It is up to the states to define the full range of supports appropriate for these students.

No set of grade-specific standards can fully reflect the great variety of abilities, needs, learning rates, and achievement levels of students in any given classroom. Importantly, the standards provide clear signposts along the way to the goal of college and career readiness for all students.

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Building on the best of existing state standards, the Common Core State Standards provide clear and consistent learning goals to help prepare students for college, career, and life. The standards clearly demonstrate what students are expected to learn at each grade level, so that every parent and teacher can understand and support their learning.

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Website for Michigan Association of Intermediate School Administrators

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The Science of Reading - The Reading League

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The Reading League's mission is to advance the understanding and use of evidence-aligned reading instruction through the science of reading.

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The Brain Prize Presents: Stanislas Dehaene

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Advancing Science of Reading in the Early Years - K–5 Literacy Program & Curriculum | Amplify CKLA

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What Teachers Need to Know and Do to Teach Letter-Sounds, Phonemic Awareness, Word Reading, and Phonics

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Iowa Reading Research Center - The University of Iowa

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Much like reading, writing is not a skill we are born with, so students need to be taught these concepts in a systematic and explicit manner. As a result of handwriting instruction, students learn letter shapes and letter sounds-two skills closely related to early reading development. Focusing on letter identification and formation, LIFTER gives students the building blocks they will need to become proficient writers and readers.

A Supplement to Core Instruction

LIFTER is intended to supplement core instruction in pre-kindergarten and elementary classrooms. Nationally, elementary teachers often report that they have received limited to no preparation on how to effectively teach handwriting, and their students receive minimal instruction on handwriting ( Graham, Collins, Ciullo, 2023 ; Troia & Graham, 2017 ). In Iowa, the districts we have partnered with report the need for better supports to teach this critical skill.

In addition, when teachers do provide handwriting instruction to their students, their reading curriculum often teaches letters in a different sequence than their handwriting curriculum. This can result in a heavy lift for students trying to learn two competing sequences of letters at the same time.

LIFTER offers a solution to these concerns. When using LIFTER, educators control the sequence of letters they will teach, allowing them to align the tool to their reading curriculum. With LIFTER's flexible functionality and comprehensive, accompanying eLearning module, educators unlock the knowledge and materials they need to provide effective handwriting instruction to their students.

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Literacy LIFTER: Letter Identification and Formation for Transcription and Early Reading

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The PAST can be downloaded above. Please also download and carefully read the instructions before using. Information can also be found in the manual “Equipped for Reading Success” by David A. Kilpatrick, Ph.D in chapter 11 on how to effectively use the test. Make sure to also practice using the test before using it with […]

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Lesson Resources

The UFLI Foundations Toolbox contains all the lesson resources to accompany the lesson plans provided in the UFLI Foundations manual. (Don't have a manual yet? Click here to order one) Every lesson has companion resources that will help you implement the lessons efficiently, effectively, and consistently.

Some of the companion lesson resources you will find below include:

Lesson slide decks (in PowerPoint and Google Slide formats)

Decodable passages

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Games and activities for additional practice

We have grouped the lessons into smaller units so you can access these resources more easily. Scroll down to use the buttons below to find the resources for each lesson or groups of lessons.

Please note that we are still building out these free resources, and we will be editing this page over the next few weeks. We wanted you to be able to access some materials as soon as possible, but be sure to come back later to see the rest!
New to UFLI Foundations? Learn about its development, check out a sample lesson plan, view the scope and sequence, and more.

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The UFLI Foundations Toolbox contains all the lesson resources to accompany the lesson plans provided in the UFLI Foundations manual. (Don't have a manual yet? Click here to order one) Every lesson has companion resources that will help you implement the lessons efficiently, effectively, and consistently.

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The need to explicitly teach letter-sound relationships in U.S. classrooms is settled science. ¹ However, too often such instruction is not provided in the most efficient or effective way. These instructional missteps mean that fewer children will develop strong word-reading skills. In addition, ineffective phonics instruction is likely to require more class time and/or later compensatory intervention, taking time away from the growth of other important contributors to literacy development. We have encountered many dozens, if not hundreds, of phonics faux pas. In this article, we focus on seven in early reading instruction that deserve our serious attention.

1. Spending Too Little or Too Much Time on Phonics Instruction

Our field has long had a problem with teachers devoting an inadequate amount of time to phonics instruction. Although some children will pick up word reading with little instructional effort, many require considerable instruction to master the complex task of looking at a series of lines and curves to ascertain the spoken word they represent. In languages in which there is a relatively simple relationship between letters and sounds, such as Finnish and Spanish, by the middle of first grade, children are able to read real words and pseudo-words in the language accurately almost 100 percent of the time.* In languages in which the relationships are somewhat more complex, such as Danish and French, children are about 70 percent accurate by that time point. In English, in which the relationship between letters and sounds is extremely complex, children are about 40 percent accurate at that point. ² Put another way, English word reading requires a lot more effort to teach and learn than many other languages.

On the other hand, there is such a thing as too much phonics instruction. We have seen prekindergarten and kindergarten classrooms in which the better part of the day is focused on letter-sound instruction (and often in a manner inconsistent with what research would recommend). This is problematic because it leaves insufficient time for many other important areas of development. For example, vocabulary and concept knowledge, which are strong predictors of long-term reading and writing success, also need attention. In fact, vocabulary knowledge affects word-reading development. We sometimes cannot even know whether we have read a word accurately unless we already have the word in our vocabulary. Is the word lemic pronounced with a short e, like lemon, or a long e, like lemur? Unless you already know this word, you aren't sure. For children trying to learn to read words with low vocabulary knowledge, such uncertainty is common.

Likely the question on your mind is, "How much is enough and not too much?" Unfortunately, research does not offer a decisive answer to this fundamental question. Typically, recommendations range from 30 to 60 minutes per day in grades K-2, with that time including a number of different activities we discuss below.

However, we suggest that the answer also varies by child and should be informed by simple diagnostic assessments. Some children are able to develop letter-sound knowledge more quickly and efficiently than others. This is one reason why differentiated phonics instruction is so well advised. Some instruction is provided to the whole class, but then it is reinforced and gaps are filled in as needed in a small-group context. Research has shown that reading achievement is supported when instruction is differentiated. ³ A number of researchers have developed systems by which assessments determine which letter-sound relationships each child has learned and not yet learned, and a systematic series of lessons are provided accordingly. ⁴ An important direction for our field is to work toward determining the most time-efficient approaches to ensuring each child in a class meets grade-level expectations in word reading each year.

2. Neglecting the Alphabetic Principle, Concept of Word in Print, and Other Concepts of Print

Imagine going to work for a shipbuilding company. You go to work the first day and are schooled in all the different types of bolts, screws, and nails. You learn their names, the different sizes, and the different types, but you never learn that their purpose is to join pieces of metal and that those pieces of metal are used to build ships! Although this situation is clearly ridiculous, it is actually analogous to what we see in some prekindergarten and kindergarten classrooms. Children are being taught to name letters or even identify the sounds that the letters represent, but they are unclear about why they are learning it. Letter-sound knowledge is being learned in a vacuum; the child has no context for how to use the information, no "big picture."

To understand the big picture, children must understand the alphabetic principle-how our English system of writing works. The alphabetic principle is simply that visual symbols (letters) represent speech sounds (phonemes). To write the spoken word "dog," you use alphabetic symbols to represent the speech sounds. We can combine and recombine letter symbols to form words. As odd as it may sound, children can learn letters and even letter sounds in very rote ways without understanding the alphabetic system. When children do not understand the alphabetic principle, they may do the following:

Write something but not know how to read it back because they are not using letter sounds.

Copy words but not be able to read them back.

Write letters without any match to sounds (e.g., I went to the store = bmlssmii).

Use letters they know to write all words, regardless of sounds.

Look to the teacher when they can't read a word.

Say the name of a letter when asked to read a word (e.g., no = "en").

To understand the big picture, children must understand other concepts of print as well. Concepts of print are the many understandings about how print works, including that print serves specific purposes (e.g., to help us remember or to entertain us); that print is language written down; and that, in English, we read from left to right and from the top of the page to the bottom. All of these and other "mechanics" about how print works are important to learn alongside letters and sounds.

In order to have a true understanding of the purpose and function of letters and letter sounds, children must understand how words are represented in print, or concept of word. ⁵ This means they know that words are collections of letters that represent a series of speech sounds that collectively represent a unit of meaning. They need to understand that each new word is signified by a space that does not contain any letters. They need to understand that you can see a word as well as say a word.

To understand concept of word in print, children need to watch others reading print and pointing to words. ⁶ In classrooms, this may be a teacher reading charts or big books to children and pointing to the words as they read. Teachers may also use pointers and sometimes ask children to point to words. In addition to watching others, children need to practice pointing to words themselves. A great way to do this is to allow children to point to words in a memorized line of print, in a dictated story of their own words, or in a simple book with short, repetitive sentences. Although it sounds like a really simple task, it is not. In fact, there are actually stages that occur as children learn to point to print. Specifically, they must gain control of multisyllabic words and show understanding that a word like elephant, with three syllables, is actually one unified word. When children cannot handle multisyllabic words, they will point to new words for each syllable in a word (e.g., if the text said "kittens cry," the child would point at the word "kittens" for the syllable kit and then point at the word "cry" for the syllable tens).

Essentially, whenever phonics is taught, there should be a very print-rich environment, with teachers and children interacting with print to acquire the alphabetic principle, concept of word, and other concepts of print. Without these instructional nonnegotiables, letter-sound knowledge will remain inert information.

3. Teaching Letter Names without Letter Sounds

From the alphabet song to children's toys, much of the messaging that young children receive about letters is focused on the names of letters. Although research does suggest the importance of teaching and learning letter names, also vitally important is teaching the sounds associated with the letters. A common faux pas is neglecting instruction in those sounds throughout prekindergarten and sometimes well into kindergarten.

Some people think that teaching letter names is essentially teaching their sounds, but unfortunately that is not the case in English. Some letter names don't have a sound commonly associated with the letter at all. Neither Hh, Ww, nor Yy has its commonly associated sound in its name (e.g., there is no /h/, as in happy, in the name of the letter Hh ("aych")). Knowing these letters' names definitely does not lead children to know their associated sounds. Some other letters' names contain one of the sounds commonly associated with the name but not the other. For example, Cc has one of its common sounds in its name (/s/) but not the other (/k/).

The primary vowels are like this as well. We would have been much better off if they were named by their short sounds (/a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, and /u/, as in pat, pet, pit, pot, and putt), because those are more common in the words read by beginning readers than their long vowel sounds (the letters' names)-but no such luck. Letter names are also challenging for young readers because they aren't consistent in whether the commonly associated sound is at the beginning or end of the name. For example, in Mm/"em," the letter's target sound is at the end of the letter name, but in Jj/"jay," the target sound is at the beginning. That means for letter names to help children, they must memorize whether the target sound is at the beginning or end of the name.

The complexities of letter names in English might lead you to think we should not teach letter names at all, but research suggests that teaching letter names is still worthwhile ⁷-it just needs to be accompanied by lots of attention to the sound or sounds commonly associated with each letter and by a thorough understanding of the challenges posed by English letter names. A teacher with such knowledge would understand, for example, why a young child might spell the word daisy as WAZ. Why? Sometimes children write "W" for the /d/ sound because the letter name for Ww-"double-u"-begins with the /d/ sound. The next sound we hear in daisy is the letter name for Aa (the long a sound), and the third and fourth sounds in daisy are the name of the letter Zz ("zee").

A final point about letter-name knowledge: it is often noted that letter-name knowledge in preschool and kindergarten is a strong predictor of children's later literacy achievement. This is true, but it is not because letter-name knowledge is an even-close-to-sufficient contributor to actual reading or writing. It is helpful, but some children learn to read knowing only letter sounds-no letter names. The predictive power of letter names lies largely in the fact that it is a proxy for other things. Children who know letter names early are more likely to have experienced a substantial emphasis on print literacy in the home and to have attended a strong preschool, for example, which in turn increase the likelihood of higher later reading and writing achievement. Naming letters is only one facet of letter knowledge, and probably not even the most important one. It is the application of letter-sound knowledge that advances children's reading and spelling.

4. Using Inappropriate Alphabet Key Words

A common tool for teaching the alphabet is alphabet key words, such as Aa is for apple, Bb is for ball, and so on. The idea is to make alphabet learning easier by creating meaningful associations between the letter and a word that begins with that letter. Unfortunately, too often, alphabet key words are problematic, creating more confusion than clarity for young children. Good alphabet key words need to begin with one of the sounds commonly associated with that letter. For example, Oo is for octopus works-the first sound in octopus is the short o sound. However, Oo is for orange does not work. The o in orange is what we call an r-controlled vowel. It does not make its typical short or long vowel sound. Similarly, Tt is for thumb does not work because there is no /t/ sound in thumb-there is a th digraph (two letters representing one sound). Another pitfall to watch out for is an alphabet key word that begins with a letter name, which can be really confusing to children. For example, Ee is for elephant is confusing because it begins the letter name for Ll ("el"), and Cc is for cake is problematic because it begins with the letter name for Kk ("kay").

Alphabet key words also need to be depicted clearly in a photo or drawing, not easily confused with other items, and they should be words that are known to or can be readily learned by children. We recommend two alphabet key words for the letters c, g, a, e, i, o, and u-one for each of their two common sounds. Caution should be exercised in using children's names as key words, as some do not make a sound typically associated with the letter in English (e.g., Juan). In these cases, we suggest using the child's name to show the shape and name of the letter but to focus on a different alphabet key word for the sound.

For key words to do their job, children must be able to separate the first sound in the word from the rest of the word (e.g., to separate the /b/ from the /all/ in ball). Ideally, children develop this skill, called initial phoneme segmentation, during or before the prekindergarten year. However, not all children meet this expectation. Fortunately, you can work on this skill while teaching the alphabet, including alphabet key words. Research strongly suggests that phonemic awareness (conscious awareness of the individual sounds in spoken words-for example, recognizing that sheep has three sounds: /sh/, /ee/, and /p/), although an entirely oral skill, is actually best developed with accompanying letters. This initial phoneme segmentation issue is also why you should be judicious about using alphabet key words that begin with blends (two consonant letters pronounced in succession in a syllable, such as dr in drum); it is especially difficult for young children to separate the initial phoneme in a blend.

5. Lacking a Scope and Sequence

You can teach phonics in many different ways. You can use word or picture cards, magnetic letters, letter tiles, games, or even more traditional methods. However, if you want phonics instruction to be effective, you need to know the content (e.g., consonants, short vowels, digraphs) that you are teaching and the order in which children typically learn, and thus that you will teach, that content. We call this a scope and sequence. ⁸ Across decades, evidence has accumulated to suggest that systematic phonics instruction with a scope and sequence will produce better outcomes than instruction that does not follow a scope and sequence. ⁹

Historically, a range of less systematic approaches have been popular. Typically, these approaches do not have a clear scope or follow a sequence but instead address letter sounds only as they arise incidentally in interactions with children or are needed to read words within a specific text. So, if a teacher is reading the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, she will teach the ee sound because it is found in the word see. The problem with this kind of serendipitous approach as the driver of phonics instruction is that information is not presented logically to the child and information gets missed. Of course, children should read connected text as they are learning phonics, and teachers should point out words they are reading that match taught patterns. But the scope and sequence of phonics instruction should not be based primarily on opportune moments in text reading.

Scope and sequence is also important because it helps children to organize information into cognitive categories, or "file folders," that support better cognitive storage and retrieval of information. For example, if one teaches information without a scope and sequence, one might move from teaching the short a sound in a consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) pattern (e.g., bag), to teaching the vowel digraph oa (e.g., boat), to teaching ch (e.g., chip), to teaching i_e (e.g., bike). It would be a lot easier to remember these patterns if they were taught in groups: for example, teaching all the short vowel sounds ( a, e, i, o, and u), consonant digraphs that represent unique sounds ( th, sh, ch), all the CVC- e (silent e) patterns ( mate, Pete, bike, note, cute), and then both of the spelling patterns that represent the /oi/ sound (called a diphthong; oy and oi). If instruction follows a scope and sequence, the variations don't seem random but rather work to form a category (e.g., "Oh this th is kind of like the ch, two letters that make a new consonant sound").

6. Using a Problematic Approach to Teaching Sight Words

Often, even teachers who do devote considerable time to phonics instruction do not apply that instruction to teaching "sight words." Instead, they teach children to memorize sight words visually rather than to decode them. Research suggests that's the wrong approach. ¹⁰

Let's back up and talk about terminology. A sight word actually refers to any word that can be read by sight. Differentiation is a sight word for us-we recognize it essentially instantly when we see it. What many teachers call sight words are actually high-frequency words. Because a small number of high-frequency words have less regular patterns (e.g., was, the), some people call all high-frequency words sight words and think that they must be learned visually and holistically by sight.

In point of fact, letter-sound information amalgamates the word's units into memory better than any other process. When we teach high-frequency words, we need to fully analyze the letter-sound relationships within them, whether the word is comprised of expected letter-sound relationships, as in can (/k/, /a/, and /n/, just as we would expect); some expected and some unexpected letter-sound relationships, as in said (/s/ and /d/ are as expected, /ai/ would normally represent the long a, not the short e, sound); or entirely unexpected letter-sound relationships, such as of (/uv/). Nearly two-thirds of high-frequency words are actually very regular (e.g., at, in, it), but even with those that are not, we need to fully analyze the letter-sound relationships as well as read them accurately many times. We suggest studying each letter's association with each sound, relating the word to other words with the same letter-sound patterns when possible (e.g., no, go, so), and teaching high-frequency words alongside meaningful words (e.g., like with bike).

7. Missing Essential Elements of Phonics Instruction

We often observe phonics instruction that has some strengths but also some gaps. Effective phonics instruction is multifaceted. You've likely already heard about the need for explicit instruction. Explicit instruction is direct, precise, and unambiguous (e.g., telling children what sound the letters sh represent together, rather than making the connection indirectly or asking them to figure it out themselves). You probably also realize the need to apply general learning principles (e.g., specific feedback). Some other facets that must be present are:

Specific, Applicable Generalizations

Simplistic, broad generalizations or "rules" do not work. For example, if we say that silent e signals a long vowel sound all the time, then we have a lot of issues. But if the generalization is made more specific, it is more applicable. For example, the silent e pattern is consistent more than 75 percent of the time in a_e, i_e, o_e, and u_e, but only consistent 16 percent of the time with e_e.

Active Construction and Deconstruction of Words

Just explicitly teaching letter-sound relationships is not enough. If it were, we could just tell infants what each letter-sound relationship is and then they could read. Children need opportunities to move letter tiles to build and change words, listen to words and spell them by sound, and so on.

Opportunities for Application

The evidence is clear that young children benefit from opportunities to read text that emphasizes letter-sound relationships they have learned to date. ¹¹ This reinforces the value of their hard work and of using decoding to read words. Children's reading opportunities should not be restricted to decodable texts, or those with only letter sounds they have been taught, but such texts should be a regular part of the reading diet. TextProject.org is a great resource for texts, and information about texts, that support beginning readers to learn to decode, without being as boring or unnatural as some decodable texts are.

Responsiveness

Phonics instruction must be informed by our ongoing observation and assessment of children's phonics knowledge and word-reading skills. We should respond when we notice that a child is confused, is insecure with a particular skill, or has had a major breakthrough. If we are not responsive to our students, some students are likely to be left behind in their word-reading development.

For too long, much discourse around beginning reading instruction has focused on whether to teach phonics. It is time for greater attention to how-and how not-to do so. Universally high-quality phonics instruction-that avoids common missteps-should be our collective focus.
Nell K. Duke is a professor of language, literacy, and culture, and a professor in the combined program in education and psychology, at the University of Michigan. Her work focuses on early literacy development, particularly among children living in poverty. Heidi Anne E. Mesmer is a professor of literacy in the School of Education at Virginia Tech. A former third-grade teacher, her work focuses on beginning reading materials and text difficulty.
*Pseudo-words are words with letter-sound relationships that are plausible in a language but do not actually form a real word. ( back to article)

Endnotes

1. See, for example, Barbara Foorman et al., Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten through 3rd Grade, What Works Clearinghouse, NCEE 2016-4008 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, 2016).

2. Philip H. K. Seymour, Mikko Aro, and Jane M. Erskine, in collaboration with COST Action A8, "Foundation Literacy Acquisition in European Orthographies," British Journal of Psychology 94, no. 2 (May 2003): 143-174.

3. See, for example, Carol McDonald Connor, Frederick J. Morrison, and Leslie E. Katch, "Beyond the Reading Wars: Exploring the Effect of Child-Instruction Interactions on Growth in Early Reading," Scientific Studies of Reading 8, no. 4 (2004): 305-336.

4. See, for example, Heidi Anne E. Mesmer, Letter Lessons and First Words (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, forthcoming); Donald R. Bear et al., Words Their Way: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction (New York: Pearson, 2015); and Sharon Walpole and Michael C. McKenna, How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction (New York: Guilford Press, 2017).

5. Darrell Morris et al., "Developmental Steps in Learning to Read: A Longitudinal Study in Kindergarten and First Grade," Reading Research Quarterly 38, no. 3 (2003): 302-328.

6. See, for example, Laura M. Justice et al., "Print-Focused Read-Alouds in Preschool Classrooms: Intervention Effectiveness and Moderators of Child Outcomes," Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 41 (2010): 504-520.

7. Shayne B. Piasta, David J. Purpura, and Richard K. Wagner, "Fostering Alphabet Knowledge Development: A Comparison of Two Instructional Approaches," Reading & Writing Quarterly 23 (2010): 607-626.

8. Heidi Anne E. Mesmer and Priscilla L. Griffith, "Everybody's Selling It-but Just What Is Explicit, Systematic Phonics Instruction?," The Reading Teacher 59, no. 4 (2005): 366-376.

9. Sebastian P. Suggate, "A Meta-Analysis of the Long-Term Effects of Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Fluency, and Reading Comprehension Interventions," Journal of Learning Disabilities 49, no. 1 (2016): 77-96.

10. Linnea C. Ehri, Eric Satlow, and Irene Gaskins, "Grapho-Phonemic Enrichment Strengthens Keyword Analogy Instruction for Struggling Young Readers," Reading & Writing Quarterly 25, no. 2-3 (2009): 162-191; and Linnea C. Ehri, "Learning to Read Words: Theory, Findings, and Issues," Scientific Studies of Reading 9, no. 2 (2005): 167-188.

11. Jennifer P. Cheatham and Jill H. Allor, "The Influence of Decodability in Early Reading Text on Reading Achievement: A Review of the Evidence," Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal 25, no. 9 (2012): 2223-2246.

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The need to explicitly teach letter-sound relationships in U.S. classrooms is settled science. 1 However, too often such instruction is not provided in the most efficient or effective way. These instructional missteps mean that fewer children will develop strong word-reading skills.

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K-3 Essential 5, Assessment Sample Video

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How Long Should Students Work with Decodable Text?

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Wiley Blevins, Ed.M. – The value of accountable text

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Instruction in Letter Sound Relationships

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Instruction in Letter Sound Relationships

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K-3 Essential 5, Instruction in Letter-Sound Relationships Sample Video

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Phinder: Search for words with spelling patterns

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Phinder: Search for words with spelling patterns

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Devin Kearns, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Special Education in the Department of Educational Psychology in the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut, Storrs. Please visit devinkearns.org to learn more about Devin.

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Phinder | A Resource for Phonics Lessons

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This is a free website that allows teachers and researchers to find words that match certain letter-sound patterns. Teachers can create word lists for phonics lessons, and researchers can find words for word recognition research.

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the storage of words

in memory

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The morning message is a popular way to help elementary students transition into school—and it can be adapted for home learning.

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Kylene Beers & Robert E. Probst agreed to answer a few questions about their new book, Disrupting Thinking: Why How We Read Matters.
LF: You write about having seen a lot of reading lessons focused on "extracting" and you'd like to move them over to "transacting." Can you elaborate on that point? Kylene Beers & Robert E. Probst:
By "extracting," we mean simply taking information out of texts. That's the sort of reading we do when we are looking for some information to use immediately: How often do I take this medicine? How much vanilla do I add to this recipe? How do I fix my garbage disposal? If your house is on fire, we want you to read how to use your fire extinguisher and put those directions into action. Immediately! Extract and use. Reflecting on memories called to mind and other aspects of the reading experience are less important than immediate extraction and application of the information!

The term "transacting," which we borrow from Louise Rosenblatt, shifts the emphasis slightly from the text to the impact of the text upon the reader. When we read the novel, rather than reading to remember a list of character traits, we'd rather read to explore what the character's choices show us about life in general and perhaps ours in particular. When we look at the article about global warming, rather than merely memorizing ways methane contributes to the problem, we'd rather read to wonder what this information means in our own lives, what we understand our responsibility is, what we agree with, and what we want to challenge.

A reader who is transacting with the text isn't simply trying to remember what the author said or what the character did, but rather he may be aware that one moment he feels very skeptical and doubting of the writer, at another moment he may be enthusiastically in agreement with what he finds on the page, that at some point he comes to like and care about a character he at first had rejected, or that he is becoming critical and distrustful of a character with whom he had, at first, been very sympathetic.

We focus on this in the book because for too many years too many teachers have felt pressure from tests to focus on extracting information. This might have (and we aren't sure) raised some test scores, but data about who reads at age 17 suggests it hasn't raised lifetime readers. We need to disrupt the practice of merely reading within the four corners of the page.
LF: In the book, you discuss a "Book, Head, Heart (BHH) Framework." Again, can you share a little more about that here? Kylene Beers & Robert E. Probst:
The BHH framework is simply an effort to remind teachers that a primary focus on what the text says isn't enough. Lifetime readers see reading as a valuable experience for helping them think reflectively about themselves and the world around them. This framework is just that, a framework-not a list of questions to be answered for each text that is read.

We'd add that some have asked us if the BHH framework is really just a KWL chart. We don't think so. KWL charts might suggest some inferences that readers might make, but KWL charts still focus on thinking about what the text offers. We've also been asked if the BHH framework is simply another way of reminding kids to think about what's in the book and beyond the book. Again, we don't think so. When we asked teachers to tell us what the phrase "beyond the text" meant to them, teachers talked about inferences kids should make. Few mentioned that it means considering what the reader has taken to heart. It's time we explicitly help students recognize that reading is a changemaker.

Finally, we've been asked if kids should always find something to take to heart with every text they read. No. Of course not. Some texts are read simply to get information. Some texts offer us respite from a long day but don't carry a message we find critical to carry to our hearts. The reader decides if that text at that moment offers them something worth taking to heart.

We want to remind readers of Disrupting Thinking that if what you're doing is creating passionate, curious, lifetime readers, readers who go to a text expecting it to have bearing upon their lives, then don't change a thing! But if your students seem to think that they read to finish, read to answer questions, read because something was assigned, and fake read their way through the school year, then perhaps it's time to try something new. Perhaps it's time to show kids that reading is what can allow them to think about how they might change, might grow, might become more than they ever thought they could be.

Too often, the work all of us do in schools is work we undertake simply to "cover" the material, to have done it. The students will say "We did Shakespeare last year, why do we have to do him again?" or "We read about all those 'isms' last year-socialism, communism, fascism-why do we have to read them again?" They read to get through an assignment or be done with a writer or a text and then they are eager to lay it aside and forget about it. For too many, reading is something to be finished. We would encourage them, instead, to carry something away with them, some sense of how they might be slightly different as a result of reading the text. An important text should offer us something, something worth taking to heart.
LF: The word and concept of "disrupting" has been used a lot with businesses, but some educators (including me) are wary of how it has sometimes been used to paint a picture of a future privatized and techcentric school system. I know that's not how you're using it, however. Can you explain what you do mean by using the word and why you chose it? Kylene Beers & Robert E. Probst:
Well, no one who knows us or our work would ever think we support anything that is about privatizing education. We believe in public schools and know they are a backbone of this great country. And we love to talk about how technology has always been a part of schools. Remember the outrage evoked by moving from the cartridge pen to the ball point pen, or the sliding rule to the calculator, or the carbon paper in the manual typewriter to the auto-correct electric typewriter? Remember the excitement of the film strip which eventually was replaced by the 8mm movie? The overhead projector became the LCD projector which became the smart board which has turned into a myriad of handheld devices (under the label of BYOD). Schools have always been connected deeply to technology. But that wasn't what we had in mind when we chose the term "disrupting" as a part of the title.

The inside front cover of the book shows the middle of the journal we kept while writing this book. If you look closely, you see some of our thinking the day we chose this term. We struggled to find the word we thought captured the thinking we were looking to share.

We think in some ways it's unfortunate that we saw the potential power of that word, "disrupting," at the same time as many other people in business, and perhaps in industry, were also identifying its potential. We surely didn't want to echo their language. But the word disrupting suggested to us change. If your thinking is disrupted, then it is, presumably, changed slightly and we had come to see change as one of the primary purposes for picking up a text. If, after all, you read a text and there is absolutely no change whatsoever, you know nothing more than you did before you read the text, you have exactly the same attitudes and feelings you had before you read the text, you will behave and think precisely the way you have always behaved and think, and the text has had absolutely no impact upon you at all.

We believe readers should be open to the possibility that a text may give them the opportunity to change. They may read it and say, "I think I see the world more clearly now," or "I have broadened my understanding of this concept," or "I have changed my mind completely about this issue" or even more simply, "Wow."

When we have emphasized extracting from a text, we have perhaps encouraged readers to conform to the text, to remember and perhaps to hold it in reverence or to see it as the authority. When we have emphasized getting the answers right, we may have valued correctness too highly, and thus rewarded getting things right, winning arguments, and dominating in the debate about interpretations. We should value as highly, or perhaps even more highly, the willingness and the ability to rethink ideas and to change our minds. In other words, we should welcome the potential disruption a text offers to our thinking.
LF: You write about "best practices" and "next practices." Can you talk about what you mean by those phrases and a couple of examples from each? Kylene Beers & Robert E. Probst:
We read the other day that the long-accepted medical best practice of requiring patients to complete a full-course of antibiotic treatment might not be a best practice. In fact, it might be a bad practice, one that is contributing to the growing problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

We each bought a new iPhone recently. It was no longer current by the time we returned from the store.

That new refrigerator? Well, darn. Now the newer fridge can electronically record what we need to buy at the grocery store.

Businesses are always asking "What's next?" What's next is different from "What's best?" In schools, teachers have been so overwhelmed with the push to assure that kids will pass that damned test that they fall back on the assurance that this (or that) is a best practice. Best practices seem safe. Best practices ought to promise best results. Best is, well, best. And so we hug the coastline of best practices because trying something uncharted might just send us off into waters where, as ancient maps once warned about unexplored waters, " here, there be dragons."

We suggest that teachers in a school come together to decide which best practices they know they can all endorse across contents. And, then they ought to embrace those. And they ought to wonder what they should be trying next. More flexible schedule (if you say, "That would never work; I don't even know that that means," then perhaps you haven't quite embraced disruptions). More small group work? More choice reading? Flipped classrooms? Stationary bikes in classrooms to help channel energy? Self-expression as the goal of a school? Remember, to embrace a disruption means asking yourself what needs to change and then confronting the assumptions that make those changes hard.
LF: There's a sizable section in the book on "Silent Reading." How do you imagine it happening in schools and why do you think it's so important? Kylene Beers & Robert E. Probst:
Perhaps the more important chapter would have been "Does Reading Still Matter?" We are beginning to hear that question and while we believe the answer is a loud and resounding, "YES!" we know that if the question is being asked, we best have an answer other than our adamant assertion that of course it does. We best know why reading still matters.

This is a time when information and entertainment can come to us in ways that don't require we read. Need to learn how to install a ceiling fan? Go to YouTube. Want to make a cake? Turn on the Food Channel. Wonder what time it is? Ask Siri. Need to get from here to there? Tap on Google Maps. Want to know why everyone loves that newest bestseller? Download the audio version and listen on the way home. In a time when you don't have to read for information or entertainment, why does reading still matter?

We believe reading matters now-perhaps more than ever-because when you read you are alone with your thoughts. It's you, the text, the character, or the information. You and your thoughts alone. No political commentator telling you what to think. No paid actor reading words the way he has decided they should be stressed. It's you. Your thoughts. Your responses.

That's why we wrote the chapter on silent reading. For a long time in this country (everywhere, actually) reading was oral. That was in part because for a long time we didn't have enough texts for everyone to have one. But before that, it was because a primary text that was shared was the Bible and the church wanted to make sure that the scriptures were properly understood. So, it was read to people. The reader controlled the meaning-making; the listener simply took it in.

Ah! The reader controlled the meaning-making. Why do we talk about silent reading? Because we want to raise up kids who make meaning for themselves. Who think. Who respond. Who do not rely on political pundits, television commentators, flashy salesmen, unscrupulous preachers, or corner-hawkers (we're in New York City as we write this and just survived the barrage of corner-hawkers as we headed to our hotel) to tell them what to think. Reading matters. Silent reading matters most.

How will that look in your classroom? That's for you to decide. Sometimes, everyone might be reading the same book. Other times, students might be in small groups reading what that group has chosen to read. Still other times, students might be reading with a buddy, each checking in on the other every few pages or few chapters. In Disrupting Thinking, we discuss with more specificity how this might look in various settings. We trust you, though, to make the best choices for your students.
LF: Is there anything I haven't asked you about that you'd like to share? Kylene Beers & Robert E. Probst:
We've been asked why our book is filled with questions more than answers, more than strategies, more than activities teachers might share with students. We think that's a fair question, one deserving of an answer. We think that teachers have been undervalued as decision-makers for several decades in this country, and we want to be a part of disrupting that practice. And so we present-especially in Part III-practices that are worth questioning and perhaps some practices that are in need of disruptions. We offer those as starting points with discussion prompts to get ideas flowing. But after that, we trust you, we trust teachers and teacher-leaders to make the decisions that are best for your students, for your community, and for the literary ecosystems you are trying to make sure thrive in your schools.
LF: Thanks, Kylene and Robert!
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'Disrupting Thinking': An Interview With Kylene Beers and Robert E. Probst (Opinion)

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Kylene Beers & Robert E. Probst agreed to answer a few questions about their new book, "Disrupting Thinking: Why How We Read Matters."

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The Writing Revolution - Empower teachers to help students -

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Book Resources - The Writing Revolution - Empower teachers to help students

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The Writing Revolution 2.0 By Judith C. Hochman & Natalie Wexler with Kathleen Maloney This website serves as a companion to The Writing Revolution 2.0 book, offering valuable resources to support your journey as an educator. We’ve organized this online hub by chapter, making it easy for you to find the resources and examples referenced

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Short Narrative Films for Read Aloud Instruction

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Short Narrative Films for Read Aloud Instruction

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Printable Reading Comprehension Lesson Plans for Grades 3–6

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In this article, you’ll find five printable reading comprehension lesson plans, activities, and a tip sheet for students! Each 4-day reading comprehension lesson

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The Reading Strategies 2.0 study guide.pdf

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How many times have you heard someone say: "In kindergarten through third grade, kids learn to read, and then in fourth grade and beyond, kids read to learn"? This phrase is often used to promote the idea that the early years of schooling should focus primarily on helping children learn to decode text fluently. Fluent decoding is, of course, critical for independent reading, and we do want children to develop this skill in the early grades of school. However, fluent decoding is necessary but not sufficient for successful reading. ¹

Successful and engaged readers comprehend, learn from, and enjoy what they read. This requires far more than the ability to look at the symbols on the page and say the words that these symbols represent. Readers need background knowledge and vocabulary, they need to know how texts are constructed and how they are used, they need strategies to coach themselves when reading is challenging, and they need to feel motivated to read.

Luckily, children can begin to learn all of this in the early grades of school-by reading! How can children "read to learn" when they are still learning to decode text independently? The answer is that adults read aloud to them. Interactive read-alouds, where adults read text to children and facilitate discussion of the text, are an incredibly effective method for supporting children's literacy learning. In this article, I describe some of the knowledge and skills that children must develop in order to become successful readers, and I share evidence that read-alouds can support students in this learning. In other words, interactive read-alouds have the power to help children read to learn as they learn to read.

Interactive Read-Alouds

What can children in the early childhood and elementary years learn during interactive read-aloud experiences? It turns out that the answer is a lot. In particular, studies demonstrate that certain ways of reading aloud optimize children's learning. The read-alouds described below share several key features for supporting student learning. First, most effective instructional practices for read-alouds are interactive. This means that the teacher and students are actively involved in thinking and talking about the read-aloud text. This extra-textual talk (i.e., the talk that happens around the text) facilitates children's literacy development in both early childhood and the elementary grades. ²

Second, most effective read-aloud techniques are purposeful and planned. This means that the teacher has carefully selected the text and determined how it will be used to support student learning. This includes planning how and when the text will be read, what the teacher will explain or model for the students, and the types of questions, ideas, and words that will be discussed. Third, effective interactive read-alouds can and should occur across the school day, in a broad range of content areas, and not just during language arts.

Despite all the evidence that interactive read-alouds support student learning, studies show they may be neglected during instruction in pre-K and elementary classrooms. In our study of 55 kindergarten classrooms, ³ we observed instruction for more than 600 hours and found that kindergarten teachers spent, on average, only 8.36 minutes engaged in read-alouds of literature and 1.7 minutes on read-alouds of informational text. Note that an average of 1.7 minutes means that most teachers did not read any informational text at all. Even when texts are read aloud, researchers have documented a focus on fiction texts, ⁴ with limited attention to a broad range of text genres and text structures. Also, the quality of interactive read-alouds may vary greatly across classrooms. ⁵

Learning about the World

Interactive read-alouds provide critical opportunities to support children in building knowledge about the world, and this knowledge can in turn support students' comprehension of new texts. The more related knowledge students bring to a text, the better they are at comprehending that text. ⁶ Importantly, this idea extends beyond fact-based knowledge and includes broader types of knowledge. For example, studies demonstrate that students have stronger comprehension of texts that align with their cultural knowledge. ⁷

You can test the relationship between knowledge and comprehension by reading the following paragraphs on a topic that you may know little about:

It also meant that black holes had a temperature and had entropy. In thermodynamics, entropy is a measure of wasted heat. But it is also a measure of the amount of information-the number of bits-needed to describe what is in a black hole. Curiously, the number of bits is proportional to the black hole's surface area, not its volume, meaning that the amount of information you could stuff into a black hole is limited by its area, not, as one might think, its volume.

That result has become a litmus test for string theory and other pretenders to a theory of quantum gravity. It has also led to speculations that we live in a holographic universe, in which three-dimensional space is some kind of illusion.

This text is from the recent New York Times obituary of Stephen Hawking. ⁸ While you may be able to decode the text quite fluently, even for strong readers it can be difficult to really understand what the text is about unless you have some knowledge of theoretical physics. However, for a reader who knows about black holes or string theory, this passage is easy to comprehend.

So, what might the instructional implications of this finding be? First, and most importantly, we can't wait for children to decode fluently in order to build their knowledge of the world. The goal should be to build children's knowledge, across a broad range of domains, during the early years of schooling, while they are building their reading fluency. One way to build children's knowledge is by reading aloud to them. While we need knowledge to understand what we read, it is also the case that the more we read, the more we know. In turn, the more we know, the better we become at reading. So, we should start early by reading aloud to young children from a range of texts and genres to build their knowledge of the world.

Studies have shown benefits for students' learning when read-alouds are integrated into content-area instruction. For example, several effective programs have integrated read-alouds into science and social studies instruction. ⁹ In particular, read-alouds can provide opportunities for children to learn about and discuss ideas aligned with content-area standards that they cannot experience directly in their classrooms. Whether this is a historical event or the opportunity for a child in a midwestern state to learn about the ocean, read-alouds can bring new ideas into the classroom to support content-area learning goals.

Recently, researchers have shown that reading sets of texts that are conceptually or thematically related can be particularly beneficial for building knowledge. ¹⁰ The idea is that as knowledge is built over time, students can understand more and more challenging texts. Many adults have had this experience, for example, when taking a class on a new topic or when trying to do research to learn something new. At first, the readings feel incredibly challenging, but over time, the more you read, the clearer the ideas in the texts become. If you read six texts on black holes and cosmology, your understandings of this topic would grow and develop with each text, making it easier and easier to comprehend and learn from the passage you read above. Therefore, teachers should purposefully select sets of related texts with the goal of building children's knowledge across a series of interactive read-aloud experiences.

As discussed above, reading texts that align with students' cultural knowledge may support reading comprehension. Therefore, teachers can build upon the funds of knowledge ¹¹ that students bring to school by including interactive read-alouds with themes and characters from a broad range of cultures and backgrounds. Reading and discussing culturally diverse texts also aligns strongly with recommendations for enacting culturally relevant literacy instruction in early childhood and elementary classrooms. ¹²

Learning New Vocabulary

Knowing the meaning of words in a text is critical for understanding what we read. ¹³ While we need vocabulary to comprehend what we read, vocabulary can also be built as readers are exposed to challenging new words in text. Evidence from research studies demonstrates that young children learn vocabulary through interactive read-aloud experiences. ¹⁴

The challenge for our youngest learners, who are not yet able to decode text independently, is that access to the vocabulary of text requires an intermediary-someone to read the text to the child. Unfortunately, if many teachers are not reading aloud regularly to young children, as is indicated by the studies described above, young children may have limited opportunities in school to learn the academic vocabulary of texts. Importantly, as children begin to read independently, they continue to benefit from read-alouds. This is because the texts that beginning readers use for practice purposefully limit challenging vocabulary to make the texts easier to decode. Therefore, while students are learning to decode fluently, teachers can promote vocabulary development by reading aloud from texts that are more challenging than the texts that students can read by themselves.

Children may learn some new vocabulary just from listening to text, but they learn and retain more words when teachers provide child-friendly explanations of new vocabulary. ¹⁵ For example, after reading the word dreadful, the teacher can stop and say, "When someone feels dreadful, it means she feels awful, she feels very bad." Studies demonstrate that this practice alone can support children's word learning, with estimates that children learn about 22 percent of new vocabulary from this type of brief, one-time explanation. ¹⁶

Interestingly, in this study, two additional explanations of each word's meaning doubled children's retention of new words. Child-friendly explanations are not limited to talk about word meanings, but may include a picture, prop, or action (e.g., using an action to explain the word crouch). ¹⁷ It can be particularly challenging to come up with child-friendly explanations without preparation. So, this practice is more effective when teachers select words to teach and plan these explanations before the read-aloud. Explaining word meanings before or during read-alouds supports vocabulary development, but it also supports children's comprehension of the text being read. ¹⁸

Another critical feature of effective vocabulary-focused read-alouds is the opportunity for children to engage in active processing of new words. ¹⁹ Rather than just passive listening, children need opportunities to discuss the meaning of a new word, act out the meaning, think of synonyms and antonyms, and use the new word in discussion. Typically, this additional practice with words occurs for a small set of important words that the teacher has selected because these are words that children need for future reading (i.e., new or challenging words that occur frequently in text) or for content-area learning.

Providing opportunities for active processing directly after the read-aloud supports students in learning more new vocabulary, but additional practice beyond the initial read-aloud, in other contexts or during a rereading, may be necessary to support retention of new vocabulary. ²⁰ The goal is to create engaging opportunities for children to think about and use new words in meaningful ways.

One way to provide repeated exposure to new vocabulary, and to provide opportunities for students to use new words in discussion, is to read multiple texts on the same topic. Typically, books on the same topic include similar words. When listening to and discussing a set of books about birds, for example, students are likely to encounter words like nesting, migrate, and molt multiple times across the texts. Studies have found that this natural repetition in meaningful contexts benefits word learning. ²¹ Therefore, the use of text sets may be particularly beneficial because it supports students in building knowledge and vocabulary simultaneously.

Learning about Text

Good readers know a lot about text and how text functions. In the early childhood years, children need to learn basic concepts about print-for example, that in English, we read print from left to right across a line of text and from top to bottom on a page. Children begin to learn that the writing in text represents oral language-for example, that one word the reader says aloud is represented by one word on the page (often called one-to-one correspondence). Children also need to understand the difference between a letter and a word, and that letters represent particular sounds.

One way that children learn this information is when adults show them how print works during read-alouds. Researchers have tested a method called print referencing, in which the teacher holds the text so that it faces the children. ²² The teacher both shows and tells children how text works during the read-aloud. For example, when the teacher runs a finger under the words that are read, children learn about directionality, and when the teacher stops to ask children to notice or point to words, the teacher supports children in developing an understanding of one-to-one correspondence. Studies of print referencing demonstrate that young children make substantial gains in print knowledge when their teachers use this method, compared with children who do not experience this type of interactive read-aloud. ²³

As children learn to become independent readers and writers, they need more sophisticated understandings about the use and function of texts. There is evidence that developing an understanding of the different purposes for text (e.g., to inform, to persuade, to entertain), and the text genres and structures that align with these purposes, supports students both as readers and as writers. ²⁴ Read-alouds provide an important opportunity to expose young children to a range of texts and an opportunity to discuss how authors achieve their purposes for writing. For example, an author who is trying to write an informational text to explain the idea of forces may use a range of text structures to achieve that goal, such as comparing and contrasting pushes and pulls or using cause and effect to show that if you kick a ball, the force will cause it to move. Unfortunately, as discussed above, observational studies demonstrate that read-alouds in the early childhood and elementary grades typically focus primarily on fictional stories, and therefore young children may have few opportunities to develop these understandings across a range of text genres.

Interactive read-alouds that focus on how texts work can also support children as writers. For example, read-aloud texts can be used to help students identify particular features of strong writing. ²⁵ One way to do this is by reading aloud a high-quality exemplar of a particular type of text (sometimes called a mentor text) and supporting students in analyzing and discussing features of the text that make it a strong example of writing for that particular purpose. This might include text structures, word choice, use of dialogue, or graphical elements. Students can then use the list of features they have generated as a guide when they engage in their own independent writing.

Learning Literacy Skills and Strategies

Read-alouds also provide the opportunity to teach students a broad range of skills and strategies they will need as they become independent readers. In the early childhood years, young children need to develop phonological awareness (i.e., the ability to distinguish sounds in oral language), letter recognition, and knowledge of letter-sound relationships. (For more on effective literacy instruction in early childhood, see the articles " First Steps Toward Literacy" and " Phonics Faux Pas.") These foundational skills can be supported through read-alouds. Children build phonological awareness through interactive read-alouds of books that play with language, such as books that include rhyme or alliteration. Alphabet books promote letter recognition and support students in associating letters with key words that represent particular sounds that letters make. Making these read-alouds interactive by encouraging children's participation ("What pictures do you see that start with the /b/ sound?") can support their development of these early literacy skills.

Teachers can also engage in read-alouds to model reading strategies, intentional mental actions that children can use to coach themselves through reading or writing tasks. ²⁶ Researchers argue that reading strategies are best taught through a gradual release of responsibility framework. ²⁷ The early stages of this framework suggest that teachers model strategy use before students use the strategy with guidance and independently. During interactive read-alouds, teachers can model the use of a broad range of strategies. These may include comprehension strategies (e.g., monitoring, visualizing, or asking questions) or decoding strategies (e.g., saying the sounds in the word or trying a different vowel sound). Beyond just showing children how to use reading strategies, interactive read-alouds enable teachers and children to take time to discuss why and when a particular reading strategy may be most effective.

Interactive read-alouds provide important opportunities to support students to think deeply about and discuss the meaning of texts. ²⁸ In particular, teachers can use text-based discussion to help students move beyond literal comprehension of a text in order to focus on applying the ideas that were learned. While it is important to make sure that students understand what is happening in the text as it is read, there is growing evidence that young students are capable of higher-order discussion to support deeper comprehension of text. ²⁹ Young children need opportunities to apply ideas, to compare and contrast different parts of a text or multiple texts, to determine the author's purpose and to consider whether the text accomplishes this purpose, and to take a stand on an argument presented in a text. Studies, beginning in the early childhood years, demonstrate that when teachers engage children in more analytic talk during read-alouds, this has long-term benefits for their vocabulary development and text comprehension. ³⁰

Several groups of researchers have studied methods for supporting discussion during the early childhood and elementary years of school. ³¹ Included as recommendations in all of these studies is the idea that teachers should promote discussion by asking open-ended questions (e.g., how and why questions) and by supporting children to understand and analyze the decontextualized language in texts (i.e., language that is used to convey ideas that are beyond the immediate context). Text-based discussions with younger students may require other scaffolds to prompt conversation, such as providing students with sentence starters that they can use to discuss the text (e.g., "I agree with you because...") or giving students opportunities for small-group or partner discussion before discussing the text as a whole group.

Finally, it is important to remember that children love to listen to and participate in interactive read-alouds. I recently visited an early childhood classroom where children had so many favorite books to suggest for read-alouds that the teacher created a "please read" bin where children could place these book requests. Anyone who has spent time in an early childhood or elementary classroom has seen the joy on children's faces when it is time for the teacher to read aloud. In fact, this is such a favorite time of day that researchers have recommended that extra teacher read-aloud time may be an appropriate reward to encourage children's independent reading. ³²

Read-alouds enable children who are not yet reading independently to experience the way reading feels to fluent readers-the pleasure of being swept up in a story, the thrill of learning something new. It is important to maintain this sense that reading is joyful, while also providing opportunities for students to learn, during interactive reading experiences.

One way to maintain this balance is to keep the primary focus on meaning. Sometimes when teachers engage in read-alouds, they focus so much on planned learning goals that the meaning of the text can be lost for children. For example, during a print referencing read-aloud, if the teacher spends too much time pointing out letters and words, the children may not be able to follow the story in the text. Or, if the teacher tries to address too many instructional goals during one interactive read-aloud, the session may go on for too long and the children may lose interest. For example, a teacher may attempt to teach print concepts and five new vocabulary words and a summarizing strategy and then lead a text-based discussion during one read-aloud session. If there are multiple teaching goals, it is most useful to read the text through with a focus on meaning and then revisit the text (or parts of the text) at a later time for additional instructional purposes.

Given all that students learn from participating in interactive read-alouds, a common question from teachers is how much time to dedicate to them. Overall, given the variety of opportunities to learn during read-alouds, it may be most beneficial to read to children multiple times per day for different instructional purposes. But, there is really no clear-cut answer to this question.

In consensus documents written by educational stakeholders in Michigan, where I live, we suggest that read-alouds are an "essential instructional practice" for supporting literacy in pre-K and early elementary school classrooms. By this, we mean that children in every classroom should participate in a high-quality interactive read-aloud every day. Given studies that suggest that read-alouds may not be occurring at all in some classrooms, this goal seems like a critical first place to start.
Tanya S. Wright is an associate professor in the Department of Teacher Education at Michigan State University. A former kindergarten teacher, her research and teaching focus on curriculum and instruction in language and literacy in early childhood and elementary school.
Endnotes

1. Marsha Riddle Buly and Sheila W. Valencia, "Below the Bar: Profiles of Students Who Fail State Reading Assessments," Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 24 (2002): 219-239; and Scott G. Paris, "Reinterpreting the Development of Reading Skills," Reading Research Quarterly 40 (2005): 184-202.

2. See, for example, David K. Dickinson and Miriam W. Smith, "Long-Term Effects of Preschool Teachers' Book Readings on Low-Income Children's Vocabulary and Story Comprehension," Reading Research Quarterly 29 (1994): 105-122; Edna Greene Brabham and Carol Lynch-Brown, "Effects of Teachers' Reading-Aloud Styles on Vocabulary Acquisition and Comprehension of Students in the Early Elementary Grades," Journal of Educational Psychology 94 (2002): 465-473; and Maria Varelas and Christine C. Pappas, "Intertextuality in Read-Alouds of Integrated Science-Literacy Units in Urban Primary Classrooms: Opportunities for the Development of Thought and Language," Cognition and Instruction 24 (2006): 211-259.

3. Tanya S. Wright and Susan B. Neuman, "Paucity and Disparity in Kindergarten Oral Vocabulary Instruction," Journal of Literacy Research 46 (2014): 330-357; and Tanya S. Wright, "From Potential to Reality: Content‐Rich Vocabulary and Informational Text," The Reading Teacher 67 (2014): 359-367.

4. Nell K. Duke, "3.6 Minutes per Day: The Scarcity of Informational Texts in First Grade," Reading Research Quarterly 35 (2000): 202-224; and Jill M. Pentimonti, Tricia A. Zucker, and Laura M. Justice, "What Are Preschool Teachers Reading in Their Classrooms?," Reading Psychology 32 (2011): 197-236.

5. Laura M. Justice et al., "Quality of Language and Literacy Instruction in Preschool Classrooms Serving At-Risk Pupils," Early Childhood Research Quarterly 23 (2008): 51-68; Karen J. Kindle, "Same Book, Different Experience: A Comparison of Shared Reading in Preschool Classrooms," Journal of Language and Literacy Education 7, no. 1 (2011): 13-34; and Susan L. Massey et al., "Educators' Use of Cognitively Challenging Questions in Economically Disadvantaged Preschool Classroom Contexts," Early Education and Development 19 (2008): 340-360.

6. For a review on the relationship between knowledge and comprehension, see Gina N. Cervetti and Tanya S. Wright, "The Role of Knowledge in Understanding and Learning from Text," in Handbook of Reading Research, vol. 5, ed. Elizabeth Moje et al. (New York: Routledge, forthcoming).

7. See, for example, Yvonne R. Bell and Tangela R. Clark, "Culturally Relevant Reading Material as Related to Comprehension and Recall in African American Children," Journal of Black Psychology 24 (1998): 455-475; and Heather M. Kelley et al., "Culturally Familiar Tasks on Reading Performance and Self-Efficacy of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students," Educational Psychology in Practice 31 (2015): 293-313.

8. Dennis Overbye, "Stephen Hawking Dies at 76; His Mind Roamed the Cosmos," New York Times, March 15, 2018.

9. See, for example, Cynthia B. Leung, "Preschoolers' Acquisition of Scientific Vocabulary through Repeated Read-Aloud Events, Retellings, and Hands-On Science Activities," Reading Psychology 29 (2008): 165-193; Pamela Spycher, "Learning Academic Language through Science in Two Linguistically Diverse Kindergarten Classes," Elementary School Journal 109 (2009): 359-379; Stephanie L. Strachan, "Kindergarten Students' Social Studies and Content Literacy Learning from Interactive Read-Alouds," Journal of Social Studies Research 39 (2015): 207-223; Michael R. Vitale and Nancy R. Romance, "Using In-Depth Science Instruction to Accelerate Student Achievement in Science and Reading Comprehension in Grades 1-2," International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education 10 (2012): 457-472; and Tanya S. Wright and Amelia Wenk Gotwals, "Supporting Kindergartners' Science Talk in the Context of an Integrated Science and Disciplinary Literacy Curriculum," Elementary School Journal 117 (2017): 513-537.

10. See, for example, Gina N. Cervetti, Tanya S. Wright, and HyeJin Hwang, "Conceptual Coherence, Comprehension, and Vocabulary Acquisition: A Knowledge Effect?," Reading and Writing 29 (2016): 761-779; Tanya S. Wright and Gina N. Cervetti, "Supporting Vocabulary Acquisition and Comprehension with Conceptually-Coherent Text Sets" (poster presentation, 24th Annual Meeting Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, Halifax, NS, July 12, 2017); and Susan B. Neuman, Tanya Kaefer, and Ashley M. Pinkham, "Improving Low-Income Preschoolers' Word and World Knowledge: The Effects of Content-Rich Instruction," Elementary School Journal 116 (2016): 652-674.

11. Luis C. Moll et al., "Funds of Knowledge for Teaching: Using a Qualitative Approach to Connect Homes and Classrooms," Theory Into Practice 31 (1992): 132-141.

12. Gloria Ladson-Billings, "Culturally Relevant Pedagogy 2.0: a.k.a. the Remix," Harvard Educational Review 84 (2014): 74-84; Kristan A. Morrison, Holly H. Robbins, and Dana Gregory Rose, "Operationalizing Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: A Synthesis of Classroom-Based Research," Equity & Excellence in Education 41 (2008): 433-452; and Mariana Souto-Manning, Multicultural Teaching in the Early Childhood Classroom: Strategies, Tools, and Approaches, Preschool-2nd Grade (New York: Teachers College Press, 2013).

13. For a review of this research, see Tanya S. Wright and Gina N. Cervetti, "A Systematic Review of the Research on Vocabulary Instruction That Impacts Text Comprehension," Reading Research Quarterly 52 (2017): 203-226.

14. See Loren M. Marulis and Susan B. Neuman, "The Effects of Vocabulary Intervention on Young Children's Word Learning: A Meta-Analysis," Review of Educational Research 80 (2010): 300-335; Suzanne E. Mol, Adriana G. Bus, and Maria T. de Jong, "Interactive Book Reading in Early Education: A Tool to Stimulate Print Knowledge as Well as Oral Language," Review of Educational Research 79 (2009): 979-1007; and Barbara A. Wasik, Annemarie H. Hindman, and Emily K. Snell, "Book Reading and Vocabulary Development: A Systematic Review," Early Childhood Research Quarterly 37 (2016): 39-57.

15. Andrew Biemiller and Catherine Boote, "An Effective Method for Building Meaning Vocabulary in Primary Grades," Journal of Educational Psychology 98 (2006): 44-62; and Isabel L. Beck and Margaret G. McKeown, "Increasing Young Low‐Income Children's Oral Vocabulary Repertoires through Rich and Focused Instruction," Elementary School Journal 107 (2007): 251-271.

16. Biemiller and Boote, "An Effective Method."

17. Barbara A. Wasik and Mary Alice Bond, "Beyond the Pages of a Book: Interactive Book Reading and Language Development in Preschool Classrooms," Journal of Educational Psychology 93 (2001): 243-250.

18. Wright and Cervetti, "A Systematic Review."

19. Isabel L. Beck and Margaret G. McKeown, "Conditions of Vocabulary Acquisition," in Handbook of Reading Research, vol. 2, ed. Rebecca Barr et al. (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1991), 789-814; and Margaret G. McKeown and Isabel L. Beck, "Effects of Vocabulary Instruction on Measures of Language Processing: Comparing Two Approaches," Early Childhood Research Quarterly 29 (2014): 520-530.

20. Michael D. Coyne, D. Betsy McCoach, and Sharon Kapp, "Vocabulary Intervention for Kindergarten Students: Comparing Extended Instruction to Embedded Instruction and Incidental Exposure," Learning Disability Quarterly 30 (2007): 74-88; Marulis and Neuman, "The Effects of Vocabulary Intervention"; and Susan B. Neuman and Tanya S. Wright, "The Magic of Words: Teaching Vocabulary in the Early Childhood Classroom," American Educator 38, no. 2 (Summer 2014): 4-13.

21. See, for example, Cervetti, Wright, and Hwang, "Conceptual Coherence"; Wright and Cervetti, "Supporting Vocabulary Acquisition"; Jorge E. Gonzalez et al., "Developing Low-Income Preschoolers' Social Studies and Science Vocabulary Knowledge through Content-Focused Shared Book Reading," Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness 4 (2010): 25-52; and Susan B. Neuman, Ellen H. Newman, and Julie Dwyer, "Educational Effects of a Vocabulary Intervention on Preschoolers' Word Knowledge and Conceptual Development: A Cluster‐Randomized Trial," Reading Research Quarterly 46 (2011): 249-272.

22. Tricia A. Zucker, Allison E. Ward, and Laura M. Justice, "Print Referencing during Read‐Alouds: A Technique for Increasing Emergent Readers' Print Knowledge," The Reading Teacher 63 (2009): 62-72.

23. See, for example, Laura M. Justice and Helen K. Ezell, "Use of Storybook Reading to Increase Print Awareness in At-Risk Children," American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 11 (2002): 17-29.

24. Steve Graham et al., Teaching Elementary School Students to Be Effective Writers: A Practice Guide, NCEE 2012-4058 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, 2012); and Timothy Shanahan et al., Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten through 3rd Grade: A Practice Guide, NCEE 2010-4038 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, 2010).

25. Graham et al., Teaching Elementary School Students.

26. Peter Afflerbach, P. David Pearson, and Scott G. Paris, "Clarifying Differences between Reading Skills and Reading Strategies," The Reading Teacher 61 (2008): 364-373.

27. See, for example, Nell K. Duke et al., "Essential Elements of Fostering and Teaching Reading Comprehension," in What Research Has to Say about Reading Instruction, 4th ed., ed. S. Jay Samuels and Alan E. Farstrup (Newark, DE: International Reading Association, 2011), 51-93.

28. Varelas and Pappas, "Intertextuality in Read-Alouds."

29. Shanahan et al., Improving Reading Comprehension.

30. Dickinson and Smith, "Long-Term Effects."

31. See, for example, Isabel L. Beck and Margaret G. McKeown, "Text Talk: Capturing the Benefits of Read-Aloud Experiences for Young Children," The Reading Teacher 55 (2011): 10-20; Lea M. McGee and Judith A. Schickedanz, "Repeated Interactive Read‐Alouds in Preschool and Kindergarten," The Reading Teacher 60 (2007): 742-751; and Grover J. Whitehurst et al., "A Picture Book Reading Intervention in Day Care and Home for Children from Low-Income Families," Developmental Psychology 30 (1994): 679-689.

32. Barbara A. Marinak and Linda B. Gambrell, "Intrinsic Motivation and Rewards: What Sustains Young Children's Engagement with Text?," Literacy Research and Instruction 47 (2008): 9-26.

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How many times have you heard someone say: "In kindergarten through third grade, kids learn to read, and then in fourth grade and beyond, kids read to learn"? This phrase is often used to promote the idea that the early years of schooling should focus primarily on helping children learn to decode text fluently.

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Tips for how teachers can scaffold instruction so that students are adept at reading text on digital devices.

LightField Studios Inc. / Alamy

The digital world affords amazing benefits when it comes to reading. We have more text readily accessible than at any other time in history. We can, in a moment, pull up text that fits a grade level, reading level, or student interest. However, this availability comes with instructional implications for teachers.

Many digital resources-from online text to e-readers, audiobooks, videos, and more-can support reading comprehension and language acquisition. But to set students up for success when integrating digital resources into your lessons, it's important to consider the following guidelines with regard to reading skills.

Eye movement

When reading on a screen, our eyes do not always move in the usual left-to-right direction, line by line, as they do with printed text.

Researchers have captured the fact that readers' eyes often move in an F pattern to take in blocks of digital text, scanning the first line or lines of text left to right but then often skimming down the left side looking for something interesting (the vertical line of an F). Another common digital layout, generally for pages with less text, creates a Z pattern of eye movement while reading. Web designers create pages with intentionally designed reading patterns that influence how our brains take in information and make decisions. Students who learn about these patterns can increase their digital literacy.

To address eye movement with students, discuss these patterns to create awareness of our natural actions as digital readers. Use the patterns as a teaching tool to discuss how the text on the page impacts what they notice. For example, you might create a worksheet with Z and F patterns, then ask students to read a digital article, track their eye movements, and respond to questions like "What does your digital text say at each of these points [in the Z and F patterns]? What did you learn at these points? What do you notice, and what do you wonder at each of these points-and about the article as a whole?"

You might give students a purpose for their reading the piece: A question to answer, or words to look for, to focus their attention.

When reading onscreen, skimming and multitasking become a distraction more than when reading printed text. Address skimming and multitasking with your students by using the following strategies: As with eye pattern tracking, encourage students to set a purpose or goal to keep them grounded in their reading, or set a goal for them; set a timer and intentionally work on students' focused reading to build stamina; remind students of reading strategies such as visualization and prediction; and, just as with print books, model reading on a digital medium, thinking through your comprehension, out loud, for students.

Name what it looks like when you lose focus during digital reading, and how you take your attention back to the text, to normalize this part of the digital reading process and demonstrate refocusing strategies.

Annotating

Annotation is key in students' keeping focused, reading with purpose, and diving deeper into what a text says. As we read on a digital platform, teachers can model what annotation looks like on the screen. Students may need time to play with annotation tools first, before transitioning to intentional use while reading.

Here are some tips and tricks for common annotation technology: iPad offers the built-in tool Markup, with which students can take a photo or make a screenshot of any text and access several drawing tools. Chromebooks and other laptops allow InsertLearning, a Chrome extension that offers live annotation options as well as many other learning supports. Drawing tools in Google Docs and Slides teach basic drawing skills to students so they can add underlines, boxes, circles, and more. And the Chromebook Camera app allows students to take a photo of text and use the camera drawing tools to annotate it.

Since time is always of the essence, use video tutorials to teach digital drawing and annotating skills in small chunks. Screen-record your moves as you annotate digital texts, so that students can return to these as references while reading.

Scaffolding

Opening Doors to Access is a great resource to support reading on iPads with built-in tools.

Read&Write for Google Chrome offers many supports for all types of reading needs.

Print Friendly & PDF Chrome extension offers a quick way to take a busy web page and create a print-friendly, text-based version. The text version can give readers a specific place to begin and simplify the message before extending comprehension by processing the accompanying webpage.

There are a number of digital reading tools that can scaffold online reading practices for students. I've found the following list useful and have enjoyed assigning student tech helpers who teach peers how to use these tools and answer questions along the way:

Digital reading is different from print reading, so it makes sense that teaching digital reading differs, too. Intentionally connecting the dots for students between how we read in print versus on digital devices can make them more aware and effective consumers of text. The above strategies are not entire lessons but offer quick interventions to include in existing reading instruction. Effective readers discuss their reading and reading behaviors. As teachers, we can set students up with needed life skills by intentionally discussing reading behaviors on devices as we do for print.

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Helping Students Learn How Best to Read on Digital Devices

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Teaching students how best to read on digital devices presents challenges. See one instructional coach's synthesis of best practices.

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Every year, early elementary teachers welcome students with a wide range of reading abilities into their classrooms. Some kindergarteners may be reading whole books, for example, while others don't know their letters.

For decades, a popular way to address this broad scope of student need has been leveled reading groups. Teachers group students at similar achievement levels to provide guided instruction in books deemed just right for their abilities, spending time with each group of students in their class every day.

But mounting evidence suggests that this practice doesn't improve struggling students' reading skills. Studies have shown that the tools powering popular leveling systems don't always accurately capture students' abilities-and that dividing up high- and low-performing students can actually widen achievement gaps.

These findings leave teachers and school leaders with a few big questions: Should they get rid of grouping altogether? If not, how do they group students if not by level? And how should they go about restructuring literacy blocks that have been designed around leveled group time for so long?

"Understanding the research base on this is a tricky endeavor," said Kristin Conradi Smith, an associate professor of reading education at the College of William & Mary's School of Education.

Leveled reading groups aren't an effective practice. But that doesn't mean that all grouping has to go, she said.

Researchers who study reading groups say that ability grouping can be effective under certain conditions-if the practice focuses on specific skills that students need work on rather than general reading levels, and if the groups are flexible enough so that students can move once they have mastered those skills.

They also point to the benefits of other types of small group instruction, like mixed-ability grouping and partner work.

Grouping students can be "extremely powerful," said Matt Burns, a professor of special education at the University of Missouri's College of Education & Human Development. "It's especially effective for [lower-performing] kids; we see more growth."

Critiques of leveled reading groups

Leveled reading groups are a component of some of the most popular early literacy curricula. In a 2020 EdWeek Research Center survey, 61 percent of K-2 teachers said that they use leveled texts in small group work.

To determine their reading "level," teachers give students an assessment, usually listening to them read and recording the number and type of errors that they make. This level is designed to measure overall reading comprehension ability, rather than component skills like decoding or fluency.

The goal with leveled reading groups is to meet students where they are, giving them enough challenge to grow their abilities, but not so much that the lesson becomes too difficult.

But research from Burns and his colleagues has shown that the leveling system doesn't actually achieve that goal.

"If the test says they're at a particular level, we don't really know if that's true or not," he said.

In part, that's because "kids who are supposedly at the same level actually have very different skill profiles," Burns said.

Levels only offer a determination of general comprehension ability, which can mask differences in students' underlying challenges. For example, two students could both be at the same low reading level, but one might have trouble with decoding, while the other struggles with vocabulary, requiring different kinds of support.

Educators and researchers alike have also long criticized leveling as a kind of tracking that makes it difficult for lower-performing students to ever catch up.

An evidence-backed option: skill-based groups

Still, there is a type of differentiation that can help struggling students make progress, researchers say: skill-based grouping.

Instead of assigning students a general comprehension level, skill-based grouping seeks to pinpoint, and address, the specific challenges that students have.

Imagine a teacher has five students who need support around segmenting and blending sounds, but the other students in the class have already mastered that skill, said Sharon Vaughn, a professor in the department of special education at the University of Texas at Austin's College of Education.

"We don't need to reteach that lesson to the whole class," Vaughn said. "We can deliberately put our instruction on the point of need for students."

Putting together skill-based groups requires different assessments than those teachers would use for leveled reading, Burns said. Teachers should use tests that can identify specific skill deficits-such as decoding inventories or fluency screeners, he said.

But informal observations can also play a role here, said Stephanie Al Otaiba, a professor of teaching and learning at Southern Methodist University's Simmons School of Education & Human Development. Teachers can incorporate information they've collected about students' understanding of academic language, for example.

These targeted small groups allow teachers to provide extra modeling and give students immediate feedback on the skills they struggle with the most, Burns said.

When students start mastering skills, then it's time to retool group composition, said Burns, suggesting that teachers could reshape groups every other week based on assessment data.

These assessments can be short, he said-for example, having students read 10 words that feature sound patterns that were just taught.

When mixed-ability groups can be useful

Some instructional goals are best met in skill-based groups, researchers said.

Students should only practice specific, discrete skills-such as the /oi/ sound, for example-if they haven't mastered those skills yet. If they have, "that additional practice might not be as beneficial," said Vaughn.

But other activities might be better executed in mixed-ability groups, Vaughn said. Take, for instance, small group discussions after listening to a read-aloud together as a whole class. Having students of varying abilities can be beneficial in this context, she said, because they bring different perspectives to the table.

"A range of knowledge about a word enhances everyone's understanding of that word," said Vaughn. "A range of knowledge of language use enhances everyone's knowledge about language use."

Discussing text in heterogeneous groups can also ensure that all students get access to grade-level material, said Tiffany Young, an assistant professor of curriculum and instruction at Doane University in Crete, Neb.

Young taught elementary reading for a decade before she entered academia. She used leveled reading groups as part of her practice with students at the time.

"The more I taught, the more I realized, they can't move to higher levels if they're not being taught at that level," Young said. "Students can't learn something they're not exposed to."

Experimental studies suggest that weaker readers can benefit from reading complex texts, in part because it helps them further develop subject-matter knowledge-knowledge that can then, in turn, support their comprehension of future texts. Pairing weaker and stronger readers to read together as partners, specifically, is supported by studies, too.

"Instead, we need to think this way: How do we differentiate our teaching so that we bridge the gap for each student between what they know and can do and what they need to know and do in order to access the text that is at their grade level, or above?" she said.

Vaughn raised a final benefit to mixed-ability groups: opportunities for kids to form connections with more of their peers.

"These fixed-ability groups also fix, in a way, friendship groups," she said.

Addressing logistical challenges

"Not in terms of money," they write, "but in terms of management and planning."

For skill-based small groups to work well, teachers need to spend time analyzing assessment data and organizing other activities for the rest of the class to do during a group rotation. There are ways to tackle these challenges, though.

In most early elementary classrooms, Conradi Smith said, the group work portion of a literacy block can take anywhere from one to two hours, with the teachers spending about 20 minutes with every group. She would recommend less time-up to an hour total, with the teacher spending about 15 minutes with each group. Burns suggests something similar, with 10 to 15 minutes per group.

These are just recommendations, Conradi Smith said, as the research base on grouping provides "surprisingly little detail or guidelines."

Figuring out timing is a delicate operation, she said. Teachers want to allot enough time to each group to provide individualized feedback. But when the teacher is with one small group, the rest of the students in the class are on their own. Small group time shouldn't be so long that students are working independently for the majority of the literacy period, Conradi Smith said.

Some schools are getting creative with scheduling, planning for small group time to occur when another adult can also be in the room-a reading specialist, or an English learner teacher, for example, she said. Districts could also use trained volunteers, she added.

In elementary schools near Virginia's William & Mary, where Conradi Smith works, college students drop in to help during small group time. "Whether they're college students or other volunteers, I think we're going to need to look beyond just the reading specialist to think through, how can we have some other adults in the classroom who can support?" Conradi Smith said.

If there aren't other adults available, students should be given assignments to work on by themselves or with peers that come with clear directions and some modeling, she said.

Finally, these activities should align with what teachers are providing in whole group instruction. "Whatever students are doing, it needs to be activities that allow them to apply the knowledge and skills that they have learned," said Young.

If students are independently reading, for example, they should be encouraged to apply their decoding skills-rather than relying on the pictures in the book to infer the story's meaning, she said.

Planning and executing small group time while considering all of these factors is difficult, Conradi Smith said. But she thinks that schools could lose an important opportunity if they toss out all types of grouping in a rush to get rid of leveled reading.

"I think we always want to be sure that we're meeting the needs of our students," she said. "It could become a problem if we're not able to help some of our students catch up."

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Classroom Reading Groups: What Works and What Doesn't

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Studies show that leveled reading groups don't support struggling students. So what should grouping look like in the reading classroom?

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One of the most important activities in my class is guided reading. Not the "Guided Reading" program (we use a textbook) but group work with the children reading under my guidance. Some of our teachers do this with the whole class. I think it works better the way I do it, with small reading groups. The students read the text and I ask questions and we talk about it. In my experience that is helpful. Is there any research supporting that? Shanahan response:
First, let's set aside the term "guided reading." It now appears to a be a wholly owned subsidiary of someone. I guess it always was. Scott Foresman came up with that label in the 1920s to describe their reading lessons, and Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell grabbed hold of it successfully in the 1990s and now it's difficult to talk about it without that connection.

In the 1940s, to compete, other book companies proposed alternative lesson plans. One of them used the term, "directed reading." These days no one is likely to confuse that with a current commercial enterprise, so let's use that.

Directed reading refers to those lessons in which students read a selection communally under teacher direction or supervision. The point is to practice reading under the vigilant watch of a teacher, who provides guidance and support to ensure success.

You are correct that this can be done and is done both whole class and small group.

Does research support that activity?

I can give you a definite, "Sort of."

The problem here is that there are so many ways teachers can organize directed reading lessons. Some versions may work better than others, but several have been found to confer learning advantages.

Going way back, E. L. Thorndike (1917) found that asking comprehension questions in a reading lesson improved comprehension. When I was becoming a teacher, studies were supporting Russell Stauffer's Directed Reading-Thinking Activity, which centered the discussions around student-generated predictions instead of teacher asked questions, and that seemed to work, too (Schorzman, 2005). Various forms of directed reading have paid off in one way or another (e.g., Davis, 1988; Schmitt, 1988). More recent studies have explored the value of approaches like Reciprocal Teaching (Moore, 1988) and Questioning the Author (Beck et al., 1996), and those seem to be good ideas as well.

Those studies prove that it is possible to make any of those varied approaches work. That doesn't mean that all such plans would be effective or that they would work equally well. But there are enough of them for me to conclude that some form of directed reading should be regular part of any reading program.

I have long promoted the idea of dividing instruction among word knowledge, text reading fluency, reading comprehension, and writing. Directed reading would go in the reading comprehension slot in that scheme.

Given the general value of directed reading, let's consider how teachers might maximize the benefit of this activity. The steps in traditional "directed reading activities" include:

1. Preteaching new vocabulary

2. Setting a purpose for reading or motivation

3. Read text segments as assigned by teacher

4. Questions and discussion after the reading of each segment

5. Oral reading practice.
Preteaching vocabulary.
Preteaching vocabulary is a pedagogical move aimed at protecting comprehension from the disruptive effects that unknown words can cause. Students will typically comprehend a text more readily when the teacher has prepared them in this way (e.g., Wixson, 1986). But it is important to remember that the purpose of directed reading isn't to guarantee high comprehension on an initial read. We are trying to teach students to read and to read better. If they are always taking on texts that the teacher guarantees will be comprehended immediately and with minimum effort, we aren't really teaching reading - just watching kids practicing.

I must admit that I have concerns about preteaching vocabulary. I think a big part of successful reading depends upon dealing with unknown words. That is part of the reading process. In real life, readers are left to their own devices when it comes to new words. How they deal with them often determines comprehension. Personally, I would minimize this - increasing attention to vocabulary during the activity. Of course, if a text is especially heavy in words that I suspect the kids won't get, I might hedge my bets, but that would be rare.

Teachers have long been encouraged to provide students with purposes for reading. "Find out what happens at Janie's birthday party" or, "When reading this, pay attention to how many chambers the heart has and what they are called." The idea, I guess, is that good readers read with clear purposes in mind.

Is that really the case? Sometimes it certainly is, like when someone is searching for specific information in a text. But, I must admit, when I read, I often don't have very specific goals in mind. I want to find out what this study reported or what the characters did in this novel, very general purposes.

Research supports that notion. When students have very specific purposes set for them, they tend to narrow their focus, increasing the possibility of finding what the teacher asked for, while leading them to ignore the rest of the information (Narvaez, et al., 1999; O'Reilly, et al., 2018; Samuels & Dahl, 1985). Students with general purposes - read to summarize this part of the text or let's find out what happens in this story - are more likely to lead students to develop a coherent mental representation of the text than when searching for more specific information.

Be vague here, rather than specific.
Reading.
When students are starting out, they need to read aloud. This is true in kindergarten and for at least a part of grade 1 for most kids. Certainly, by the time they achieve a high first grade reading level, they can profitably engage in silent reading, though too often teachers avoid this. This avoidance comes from the same drawer where we keep the preteaching of vocabulary. The idea is more to guarantee high comprehension rather than to develop students' ability to read with comprehension.

Initially, silent reading is not as effective as oral reading - for some kids that doesn't start to even up until middle school! Accordingly, many teachers engage kids in round robin reading as if they were all beginning readers. It is better to have these text segments read silently. Admittedly, sometimes you will have to have kids reread at times (it happens).

How are they going to get good at silent reading comprehension if never asked to do such reading with a vigilant teacher close by?

When you start out with this, keep the segments short - even as short as a sentence or a paragraph. Over time, you can stretch them out, assigning longer segments as they develop the facility to do the reading in their minds. (Or, you can have them initially do whisper reading or mumble reading).
Questioning and Discussion.
I know some programs encourage the use of set questioning schemes, perhaps based on Bloom's taxonomy or Raphael's question-answer-relations, or some other scheme. Research suggests that there are many ways to question students and that it is helpful to ask at least some questions that go beyond literal recall or "right there" questions. Nevertheless, the benefits tend to be tiny.

I'm not a big fan of questioning schemes per se, at least I would discourage the idea of asking one of these, and two of those, and so on. I would much rather have the teacher ask questions aimed at identifying whether students comprehended the text well and, if not, where things, went wrong. What would be important to remember from a given text and what would you have to do to get that information? What vocabulary had to be understood?, which sentences had to be comprehended?, what connections had to be made?, were there spots where it was necessary to use prior knowledge?, what inferences were needed?, and so.

If students can't answer the questions, the instruction should show them how, literally taking them back into the text and having them reread (often orally at this point) the part that gave them trouble. By the end of these lessons the student should have a fair understanding of the text - even though they may not have started that way - and the teaching should have helped the student to understand better the actions that may be needed to ensure comprehension.

Whether you teach this in a small group or whole class, teacher questions, no matter their quality, rarely surface the problems students may be having with a text. This is because there is almost always some more proficient youngster doing the answering. I strongly encourage the use of white boards, notebooks, or electronic means of getting everyone to individually answer each question. That way, the teacher can see how everyone is really doing, and can support the comprehension of all the students.
Oral Reading Practice.
Many directed reading schemes provide some oral reading practice, usually at the end. When I was a youngster, this was handled round robin style with each of us reading a sentence or paragraph until the text had been reread or until everyone had a turn.

These days, teachers have a better understanding of fluency development, so things like repeated reading and paired reading have allowed for more oral reading by each child during the same amount of time. That's great.

I am less certain about fluency always being the follow up, however. I fear it encourages teachers to avoid text that might challenge students' reading abilities (selecting texts easy enough to ensure high fluency) or it forces maximum use of inefficient small group instruction. At least for those youngsters likely to be disfluent, I'd suggest having them read the text aloud before taking it on for comprehension. Studies show that this one action can transform many supposedly frustration level texts into instructional level ones that students can take on successfully.

That fluency work can be done in pairs, through echo reading, chorally, at home with cooperative parents, or even with a recording device. The point is to give the kids a chance to decode those words and that kind of repetition has been found to accomplish that. That approach shows kids that they can often make sense of texts that they would have thought to be beyond their own means.
References
Beck, I. L., McKeown, M. G., Sandora, C., Kucan, L., & Worthy, J. (1996). Questioning the author: A yearlong classroom implementation to engage students with text. Elementary School Journal, 96(4), 385-414. https://doi.org/10.1086/461835

Davis, Z. T. (1988). A comparison of the effectiveness of sustained silent reading and directed reading activity on students' reading achievement. High School Journal, 72(1), 46-48.

Moore, P. J. (1988). Reciprocal teaching and reading comprehension: A review. Journal of Research in Reading, 11(1), 3-14. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9817.1988.tb00144.x

Narvaez, D., van den Broek, P., & Ruiz, A. B. (1999). The influence of reading purpose on inference generation and comprehension in reading. Journal of Educational Psychology, 91(3), 488-496. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.91.3.488

O'Reilly, T., Feng, D. G., Sabatini, J., Wang, Z., & Gorin, J. (2018). How do people read the passages during a reading comprehension test? the effect of reading purpose on text processing behavior. Educational Assessment, 23(4), 277-295. https://doi.org/10.1080/10627197.2018.1513787

Rothkopf, E. Z., & Kaplan, R. (1972). Exploration of the effect of density and specificity of instructional objectives on learning from text. Journal of Educational Psychology, 63(4), 295-302. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0033586

Samuels, S. J., & Dahl, P. R. (1975). Establishing appropriate purpose for reading and its effect on flexibility of reading rate. Journal of Educational Psychology, 67(1), 38-43. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0078669

Schmitt, M. C. (1988). The effects of an elaborated directed reading activity on the metacomprehension skills of third graders. National Reading Conference Yearbook, 37, 167-181.

Schorzman, E. M., & Cheek, E. H., Jr. (2004). Structured strategy instruction: Investigating an intervention for improving sixth-graders' reading comprehension. Reading Psychology, 25(1), 37-60. https://doi.org/10.1080/02702710490271828

Thorndike, E. L. (1917). Reading as reasoning: A study of mistakes in paragraph reading. Journal of Educational Psychology, 8(6), 323-332. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0075325

Wixson, K. K. (1986). Vocabulary instruction and children's comprehension of basal stories. Reading Research Quarterly, 21(3), 317-329. https://doi.org/10.2307/747712

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Does Research Support "Guided Reading?" Practical Advice on Directing Reading

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This blog entry explores the value of guiding or directing student reading. Such practice is an important part of all approaches to reading instruction and this piece explores some of the things that can be accomplished with such teaching.

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By popular demand, AIM is pleased to introduce its first Specialized Reading Knowledge course, created in collaboration with researcher Dr. Elsa Cárdenas-Hagan, to help educators develop the specialized knowledge required to accelerate language and literacy proficiency for English learners (ELs).
Specialized Reading Knowledge Bundle: English Learners

Three asynchronous learning modules (10 hours)

Three synchronous Virtual Community of Practice sessions led by an expert AIM facilitator (3 hours)

Online instruction, including exclusive content recorded by Dr. Elsa Cárdenas-Hagan,on language and literacy development, word recognition and language comprehension for English learners.

A wealth of assessment resources, implementation tools, and printables to support immediate use in the classroom.

Winter cohort begins December 18! (Click here for Pacing Guide)

Cost: $320

Enroll Today Please note that comprehensive structured literacy training (such as Pathways to Proficient Reading) is strongly recommended before enrolling in this specialized learning opportunity. Interested in providing training to a team of teachers in your school or district?
Connect with the AIM team to learn how you can integrate Specialized Reading Knowledge Bundle: English Learners into your school's professional literacy learning.

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The Animated Reading Rope - AIM Pathways

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The Animated Reading Rope is one of hundreds of learning tools for educators in the AIM Pathways digital training platform.

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Ehri (1996, 2014) conceptualizes word reading development into four phases, prealphabetic, early alphabetic, later alphabetic, and consolidated alphabetic. Each stage illustrates how word-reading develops for typical children between the ages of four and six. The model also demonstrates how phonemic awareness skills and orthographic mapping are crucial foundational skills for children to develop automatic sight word recognition (Moats & Tolman, 2019). The prealphabetic phase is characterized by children not having letter-sound awareness and recognizing words incidentally based on visual features of the word. In the early alphabetic phase, children begin to use some letter-sound correspondence to decode words. Their phonological awareness skills are characterized at the early level where they can break words into syllables, onset-rime, and identify/isolate initial sounds of words. The later alphabetic phase is when children begin to develop automatic sight word recognition and to use letter-sound correspondence. In this phase, they also demonstrate basic phonemic awareness skills of segmenting and blending words with 3-4 phonemes. In the consolidated alphabetic phase, children develop an increasing automatic sight word recognition, orthographic mapping, syllable patterns, morphemes and demonstrate advanced phonemic awareness, including deletion, substitution and reversal of phonemes.

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SST3 Literacy - Ehri's Four Phases of Word Reading

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Ehri's Phases of Word-Reading Ehri (1996, 2014) conceptualizes word reading development into four phases, prealphabetic, early alphabetic, later alphabetic, and consolidated alphabetic. Each stage illustrates how word-reading develops for typical children between the ages of four and six. The

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Jennifer Serravallo: The Reading Strategies Book 2.0

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Jennifer Serravallo: The Reading Strategies Book 2.0

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Jennifer Serravallo: The Reading Strategies Book 2.0 - 554

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To comprehend a story or text, young readers need a threshold of knowledge about the topic, and tougher state standards place increasing demands on children's prior knowledge. This article offers practical classroom strategies to build background knowledge such as using contrasts and comparisons and encouraging topic-focused wide reading.

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LibGuides: Creating Text Sets for Your Classroom: Creating Text Sets

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LibGuides: Creating Text Sets for Your Classroom: Creating Text Sets

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Here are some tips to help families support their child's speech and language development:

Talk about what you're doing, what your child is doing, and what your child sees. Use longer sentences as your child grows older.

Communicate with your child in the languages that you are most comfortable using.

Use a lot of different words with your child. Don't worry about using big words. Children enjoy new and unusual words.

Listen and respond to your child.

Help your child listen. Give directions for your child to follow.

Have your child's hearing tested if you find yourself repeating a lot or using a loud voice.

Tell stories to your child a lot. Read to your child as much as you can.

Ask questions and talk about what happened in the story. Read to your child in the languages they are learning.

Don't interrupt your child to correct their speech sounds. It's okay if your child makes some mistakes with sounds. Say the sounds correctly when you talk.

Ask questions that need more than a yes or no answer. Encourage your child to ask you questions.

Set limits for screen time. Use that time for talking, reading, and playing together.

Don't wait to get help if you're concerned. You know your child best. Getting help early can stop later problems with behavior, learning, reading, and social relationships.

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ASHA's communication milestones are designed to help you know what to expect as your child grows and develops and to know when to seek the guidance of an audiologist or speech language pathologist.

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Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors

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Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors

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Mirrors, Windows and Sliding Glass Doors

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Discover how to support your child’s growth as a young reader and writer. Here you’ll find our Reading 101 for Families guide, bilingual parent tips, ideas for building your child’s knowledge about the world, Q&A with experts, guidance on how to help a child who struggles, and ways to connect with y…

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Session 1: Introduction to the Writing Rope and What Do We Know About Effective Writing Instruction?

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Science of Reading: The Podcast, hosted by Susan Lambert, delivers the latest insights from researchers and practitioners in early reading. Listen today!

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Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong

There's an idea about how children learn to read that's held sway in schools for more than a generation - even though it was proven wrong by cognitive scientists decades ago. Teaching methods based on this idea can make it harder for children to learn how to read. In this podcast, host Emily Hanford investigates the influential authors who promote this idea and the company that sells their work. It's an exposé of how educators came to believe in something that isn't true and are now reckoning with the consequences - children harmed, money wasted, an education system upended.

Sixty years ago, Marie Clay developed a way to teach reading she said would help kids who were falling behind. They'd catch up and never need help again. Today, her program remains popular and her theory about how people read is at the root of a lot of reading instruction in schools. But Marie Clay was wrong.
Sold a Story is an independent investigative journalism project from American Public Media. We rely on your donations to support this kind of rigorous reporting.
The controversial educational publishing company has sold instructional materials and professional resources in almost every state, earning at least $1.6 billion over a decade. Explore a map of school districts.

More states are now requiring districts to adopt curriculum that adheres to the science of reading. Look up the policy in your state.

At least 15 states have passed laws about how schools teach reading since the Sold a Story podcast was released in 2022, but there is pushback.

Here's a reading list put together by Emily Hanford.

This discussion guide, created by a teacher, invites educators, parents, community members and kids to have a conversation about the podcast.

Emails and voice messages poured in from people who listened to Sold a Story.

We'll let you know when we release new episodes of the podcast. Enter your address below.

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Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong

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There's an idea about how children learn to read that's held sway in schools for more than a generation - even though it was proven wrong by cognitive scientists decades ago. Teaching methods based on this idea can make it harder for children to learn how to read.

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To kick off Dyslexia Awareness Month, UFLI held a Dyslexia 101 webinar. Topics included: facts and myths, characteristics and needs, identification and intervention, policy and professional development.

(recorded on October 1, 2020)

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Webinar Recordings | UF Literacy Institute

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To kick off Dyslexia Awareness Month, UFLI held a Dyslexia 101 webinar. Topics included: facts and myths, characteristics and needs, identification and intervention, policy and professional development. (recorded on October 1, 2020)

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UFLI Foundations: How to Implement Day 1 Lessons

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UFLI Foundations: How to Implement Day 2 Lessons

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UFLI Foundations: Progress Monitoring and Differentiation

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Read, Write, ROAR! - Michigan Learning Channel

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Kindergarten–3rd Grade learners build literacy skills with engaging ELA lessons.

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Phonics & Stuff offers free reading games for pre-readers through early reading. Each game focuses on specific phonics skill and has customizable options for the student’s needs.

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Download Michigan Learning Channel Activity Books Find all of our activity books below to keep your students engaged in learning and fun from September through summer. Visit the Find a Lesson page to find individual videos with printable activity sheets for students of all ages. Read, Write, ROAR! Activity Books

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Support for Parents:

At Reach Out and Read Michigan, we believe all families should have the tools and support they need to make shared reading a daily habit. Through our program, we empower parents and caregivers to build early literacy skills by integrating books and reading guidance into pediatric well-child visits.

Our trained medical providers encourage families to make reading a regular part of their child's routine and offer guidance on how early literacy supports healthy brain development. During checkups, children receive age-appropriate books, helping to foster a love of reading that lasts a lifetime.

With just a book and a conversation, we help build stronger bonds, promote healthy childhood development, and create a brighter future for Michigan's children.

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Reach Out and Read Michigan | Encourage Reading Today

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Enhance child development in Michigan through early literacy programs, including guidance from pediatricians and distributing books to foster a love of reading.

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Raising Readers: What Parents Can Do | NEA

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Learning to read takes practice. Loving to read takes enthusiasm. Read with your child often and create a sense of enjoyment, wonder, and a passion for reading.

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Family time is learning time. Did you know that kids learn most of their vocabulary outside of school, through conversations with family and friends? Or that drawing pictures during play time lays the foundation for reading and writing, even for the youngest of learners?

Families have always been an active part of the teaching and learning process, and they became (and continue to be) even more crucial during the pandemic.

The following research-based ideas are intended to be manageable, interactive activities you and your child can engage in to help develop their reading and writing skills, motivation, and confidence. Some of these strategies target specific age groups or grade levels, while others apply to kids of all ages. You'll see them categorized accordingly. Try out two or three of them and make them a part of your family's other important routines, like brushing teeth.

General reading and writing improvement strategies that will help kids of all ages
Model good habits by reading and writing in front of your child
No matter your kid's age, several factors influence their reading and writing growth, including attitude, motivation, access, and exposure. Think of the following strategies as tips for developing internalized mindsets, behaviors, and habits.

Adults' attitudes toward reading and writing influence children's perception of the value of these skills. Having your child observe you while reading a book or magazine and while writing a thank you note or email to a friend helps to establish a recognition that reading and writing are useful and positive parts of everyday life.
Make reading materials-ones they will truly care about-readily available for your child
Be sure to explain why you are reading and writing to your child, for example, to learn about a topic you are interested in, entertain yourself with a funny story, or thank someone for their kindness. Kids need to understand the value and purpose of the actions of reading and writing; knowing the why helps them be more motivated to read and write themselves.

Kids' threshold for boredom has appeared to lower in recent decades, particularly with today's access to social media and video streaming. If we want kids to engage in reading and writing, we need to make it the most attractive activity for them. Kids are more likely to read when they see the value in it, such as building their knowledge about something they find interesting.
Talk with your child...a lot
Find out what your kid is interested in and get as many texts as possible related to that topic. These can be books, graphic novels, magazines, or online digital texts. You don't need to spend a small fortune, either. Your local library or your child's school library probably have plenty of options to choose from.

Remember, too, that while reading on grade level is important, so is reading a large volume of text and reading for pleasure. Some texts may be below grade level for your child, and that's okay. Some might be above grade level. If a kid is interested in a topic, they're more likely to engage with a challenging text on that topic. Plus, a text that's above grade level provides a nice opportunity for joint reading with another member of the family.
Give your child authentic writing tasks to help them find their voice and develop their sense of power
Children expand their vocabulary and understanding of sentence structures not only through reading but also through conversations with others.

Talk to your children about their day at school, about what they see in the neighborhood on a walk or drive, about their interests, about the movie you watched together, about the news, about anything, really. When possible, ask questions that will elicit more than a one-word response. A colleague loves asking about her children's day using the popular Rose, Thorn, and Bud exercise, for example. Her kids share a rose, or a good thing about their day, then a thorn, a difficult thing. The bud prompt is for sharing something they're looking forward to.

Kids are more motivated to write when they are writing for real purposes and real audiences and there is a potential for real impact.

Encourage your child to write for practical and useful purposes like helping create a grocery shopping list for the week; writing a get-well-soon card to a friend; writing an email to their teacher asking for clarification on an assignment; or writing a letter to an elected official calling for change. Heck, they can even follow the lead of adorable Dillon Helbig, an eight-year-old who wrote a book and self-published it by secretly stocking it on a shelf at his local library.

Writing can also have a huge psychological benefit for processing emotions. Encourage your child to keep a journal to work through and express their own thoughts and feelings. For young learners, this might be in the form of drawing pictures.
Read aloud to your child
Literacy strategies for kids from birth through pre-K

Children in pre-K and younger are often called "preliterate." This description is important because while they are not yet "literate," they are engaging in many activities that establish a solid base for later independent reading and writing. Think of the following strategies as building blocks for future reading and writing success.
Draw on the print-rich environment at home
Children's understanding of language begins in the womb as they hear the rhythm of their mother's speech. Infants mimic speech by making sounds, which are often effective communication tools to get them what they want. Toddlers start using words and pretty quickly they are stringing together complete sentences without ever having a single grammar lesson on sentence construction. By observing and interacting with adults and other kids, children learn to speak in full sentences before they can read individual words printed on the page.

Instill a bedtime story routine, maybe with those library books you got on your kid's favorite topics. Read aloud environmental print, too, like store signs and street names. Through read alouds, children expand their vocabulary, their knowledge about a topic or idea, and their understanding of sentence structures.

Children aren't born knowing what letters and words are. It's a conceptual understanding (also known as print awareness) that they build over time with help from adults and more proficient readers.
Engage in art projects
One of the most obvious ways to build print awareness is to install a bookshelf in your kid's bedroom and keep it stocked with books from the library. However, print exists in other forms besides books. Post your shopping or to-do list on the refrigerator for them to see. Use sticky notes to place labels on items in the child's room and around the house. Get them a set of magnetic letters to rearrange on the fridge.

Surrounding kids with examples of printed texts sets the foundation for understanding the alphabetic principle.

Through drawing and painting, young kids develop the motor skills and physical stamina they need to eventually write words, sentences, and paragraphs. Having your kid practice drawing individual letters helps to establish the brain connections they need to later map sounds to letters and letter patterns when they are learning to read.

Make sure your child has access to materials like paper, crayons, and finger paints. You can also get fun (and messy) by having them use their fingers to draw letters in salt or even pudding (the reward is pudding for dessert). Let your and their imaginations run wild!
Take turns reading aloud to each other
Strategies for kids in kindergarten through grade 2

Kids in these grades are actively learning how to read. They are developing their understanding of phonemic awareness (the individual sounds in words) and are learning to match those sounds with specific letters and letter patterns (also known as phonics) through the act of decoding. Here are some easy activities to try at home.
Ask them questions about what you read together
Students in this age group are likely bringing home decodable texts from school, which use the specific letter patterns they are learning at the time. Create a positive attitude toward reading by asking them to read these texts to you and praising them accordingly.

Continue to read above-grade-level books aloud to them, too. While kids this age may not be ready to read chapter books on their own, you can still build their understanding of vocabulary and language structures as well as strengthen their comprehension by reading more complex texts aloud to them.
Play word games
Asking questions serves not only to measure kids' understanding of a text but also to deepen their understanding by helping them think more carefully about what they are reading (or listening to).

Ask kids questions that start with "who," "what," "when," "where," "how," and "why." Ask them to predict what will happen next and what in the text makes them think that. These questions help kids become active readers who are able to make connections in a text.

Kids this age are doing a lot of word study at school. They're learning to isolate the individual sounds in words and to blend individual sounds to form new words. They are learning how base (root) words, prefixes, and suffixes can help them understand the meaning of unfamiliar words.

You can play rhyming games to support their learning of the connections between sounds and letters. You can have them dissect words for their different parts and associated meanings. You can introduce word construction games like Zingo Word Builder or sight word bingo.
Listen to music, podcasts, and audiobooks together
Strategies for kids in grades 3 and above

For kids in this group, authenticity matters. They need to find real value in the reading and writing activities they're engaging in. Also, if your kid is showing struggles with reading or writing, it's important to reach out and stay in close contact with their teacher. They may need additional and targeted support with developing certain skills.

While we might appreciate music, podcasts, and audiobooks through our sense of hearing, these formats all require a writer or team of writers to brainstorm, draft, and polish ideas in writing before hitting the record button. Share that information with your child, and enjoy these types of storytelling together.

Discuss and analyze the lyrics to some of their favorite songs. Songwriters make interesting word choices and use inventive sentence structures. These provide ripe opportunity to discuss how language can be used for stylistic effect and to build vocabulary.
Practice digital citizenship by evaluating the credibility of online information
It seems like there is a podcast for every area of interest. Listening to podcasts builds listening comprehension and oral language skills. It also might spark students to create their own podcasts, which involves a lot of reading and writing. Scroll down to my last tip for useful links on creating podcasts.

If students struggle with reading fluently, it can be helpful for them to follow along with a book while listening to the audio version.

In today's world, readers are bombarded with misinformation, but it can be difficult to determine what information is credible. The organization Common Sense has a curated list of websites and apps that help kids develop their media literacy skills as responsible consumers and producers of content. News Literacy Project also offers resources for families.
Encourage them to use digital tools to create new texts
Younger kids will often start with identifying the text genre (for example, fiction or poetry) and relating it to the author's purpose (for example, to persuade, inform, or entertain) before moving on to distinguishing fact from opinion by examining key clues (for example, the use of "loaded" phrases). With ongoing instruction and practice, older kids become more skilled at evaluating sources.

If your child has a social media account, help them understand that they are participating in an authentic media environment and that their posts are examples of real writing that can have a real influence on others. Asking them to evaluate their own posts or reposts through the same critical lens as other online sources can help reinforce this understanding.

"Real-world" writing today is digital writing. People use keyboards, computers, and other digital devices to translate their thoughts into sentences for an internet-connected audience to read. Your kids might already be using Google Docs on a regular basis to collaborate with their classmates. Technology also allows writers to embed multimodal elements to enhance their ideas, such as graphics, images, videos, audio clips, animation, and hyperlinks to other sources.

Ask your child to compose texts with digital tools so they can be better prepared for real-world writing and have the opportunity to geek out with technology they are drawn to. Check out this list of free multimedia tools your kid can tinker around with as they create new texts. Common Sense has another two lists of recommended websites and apps (with free and paid options), one specifically for making videos and animations and another for podcasting. Kids' creative potential is truly limitless here. And they can "publish" these texts for real audiences. For example, NPR runs a yearly student podcast challenge with real prize money!

Putting these strategies into action

Reading and writing don't take place only at school. They are essential activities in everyday life. And they involve skills that we develop over time with purposeful support from teachers.

Your official job title might not say "teacher," but you are a huge influence in your child's life-and that makes you a teacher. These family strategies for reading and writing don't require special training, only that you and your child spend some quality time talking, reading, and writing together. You've got this!

To learn more, download How to support reading at home: A guide for families and visit our archive of articles on supporting families.

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Parent Strategies for Improving Their Child's Reading and Writing

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Families have always been an active part of the teaching and learning process. You can support your child's reading and writing at home.

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It's not an easy thing, learning to read and write. Discover what it takes to build important literacy skills, and how you can help your children grow as readers, writers, and thinkers!

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Reading at Home Archive - Reading for Pleasure

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A two phase OU/UKLA project examining children’s and teachers’ reading lives, and establishing effective ways to support Reading for Pleasure (RfP)

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ParentPowered - Evidence-Based Family Engagement

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6 Effective Reading Comprehension Strategies for Families

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These reading comprehension strategies boost student literacy at home and ParentPowered’ everyday learning moments bring them right to families.

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home >> Instructional Routines: Phonemic Awareness Instructional Routines Grades K-1

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A Florida State University Center

Instructional Planning Guides

The Instructional Planning Guides are designed to help teachers plan and document whole group and/or teacher led small group reading instruction. A grade level guide for
the sequentially listed skills, within the five components of reading, are linked with the corresponding 2006 Florida Language Arts Sunshine State Standards. This link is noted by the grade level (e.g., K) and a three-digit number. At times, only one of many skills will be included from a standard. For clarification of individual skills, refer to theComponents of Reading or theGlossary of Terms. In addition to providing teachers with a tool to plan and record instruction, the Instructional Planning Guides may be used to note ongoing instructional needs and can be used in conjunction with the Student Progress Records.

The Student Progress Records are designed to help teachers record individual student progress within each area of reading. A grade level guide for the sequentially listed skills, within the five components of reading, are linked with the corresponding 2006 Florida Language Arts Sunshine State Standards. This link is noted by the grade level (e.g., K) and a three-digit number. At times, only one of many skills will be included from a standard. For clarification of individual skills, refer to the Components of Reading or the Glossary of Terms. In addition to providing teachers with a tool to record student assessment data or observations, the Student Progress Records may be used to form groups for differentiated small group instruction and can be used in conjunction with the Instructional Planning Guides.

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A Florida State University Center Instructional Planning Guides The Instructional Planning Guides are designed to help teachers plan and document whole group and/or teacher led small group reading instruction. A grade level guide for the sequentially listed skills, within the five components of reading, are linked with the corresponding 2006 Florida Language Arts Sunshine State Standards.

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Play a daily puzzle where you mix morphemes to make words!

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Handwriting Animations - Phonics & Stuff

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The handwriting animation tool helps teach students correct letter formation. Select a letter and see an animation of showing the correct strokes. Use the controls to speed up or pause the animations. This is ideal for classroom or individual use.

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Phonics & Stuff Read-Alongs are great for pre-readers. The words of a story highlight as it is read aloud, which teaches about left-to-right direction of reading.

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As an initiative of the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) was created in 2002 to be a central and trusted source of scientific evidence for what works in education.

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Copy of UFLI Letter Formation Slides.LCPS