Literacy Blogs

Lindsay Lohan is a model of bad choices and poor judgments. Her crazy decisions have undermined her talent, wealth, and most important relationships. She is the epitome of bad decision making (type “ridiculous behavior” or “dopey decisions” into Google and see how fast her name comes up). Given that, it is fitting to name an award for bad judgment after her. Who is the recipient of the Lindsay? I think the most obvious choice would be PARCC, one of the multi-state consortium test developers. According to Education Week, PARCC will allow its reading test to be read to struggling readers. I assume if students suffer from dyscalculia, they’ll be able to bring ...

Teacher question: I am a first grade teacher. My principal has mandated that all classes K-5 do Close Reading. Is it appropriate for all ages? It seems to me that the texts at K/1 are not likely to be complex enough and that the students at this age are too concrete in their thinking.  Shanahan response:  Good question. I share your concerns. There are very few articles or stories appropriate for K/1 that would make any sense for close reading. The content usually just isn’t deep enough to bear such close study (and, frankly, if you look at the comprehension standards themselves, specifically ...

Blast from the Past: This entry first appeared June 10, 2013 and was reposted on May 1, 2021. This two-part blog entry argued against the primary grade retention policies that many states were adopting at that time. I provided both an analysis of the research that retention proponents were relying on and the highlights of the extensive body of research on retention that they were ignoring. Neither the outcomes of policy initiatives nor new research over the past 8 years have changed my thinking. However, what makes this informaton timely is the COVID pandemic. Data so far suggest that our ...

Teacher question:   I was wondering what your thoughts are on retention of special education students due to the higher demands of the common core standards. Our school uses the "Teacher's College Reading and Writing Project" Benchmark Reading Levels as our primary reading assessment. Student report card grades in reading are based on this assessment.   Two years ago, a Kindergarten student could be on level B, and be promoted.  Now, two years later, they must be on Level D/E. The pattern continues throughout the grades, what was acceptable a few years ago as grade level is no longer the case. This presents a problem ...

Teacher question: I am writing to you for some suggestions and recommendations concerning working with science and social studies teachers in light of the writing standards in the common core.  I am a former English teacher with 35 years of experience and have, for the past seven years, worked to develop and present workshops and classes for content area teachers in reading – focusing on both disciplinary and content literacy.     I have been asked by a school district to provide professional development for secondary science and social studies teachers in implementing the writing standards in the common core.  Their suggestion was to ...

I received this letter recently and below is my response. I bet this goes on in lots of schools (unfortunately). Dear Dr. Shanahan, What do you believe to be best practice in assessing a student's reading comprehension? As elementary schools turn to the Professional Learning Community framework, teachers are expected to devise tests within their grade level teams to test for reading skills like inferring, author's purpose, cause & effect...etc...   In your comprehension blog, however, you stated that it was difficult to assess these skills separately since reading is an integrated process. That makes a lot of sense.   Are these Professional Learning Communities misdirected ...

Many schools are into what they call “backward design.” This means they start with learning goals, create/adopt assessments, and then make lessons aimed at preparing kids for those assessments.   That sounds good—if you don’t understand assessment. In some fields an assessment might be a direct measure of the goal. If you want to save $1,000,000 for retirement, look at your bank account every six months and you can estimate of how close you are to your goal. How do you get closer to your goal? Add money to your accounts… work harder, save more, spend less.   Other fields? Doctors assess patient’s temperatures. ...