Literacy Blogs

Blast from the Past: This entry posted on October 29, 2008 and was revisited on August 20, 2022. When originally issued, educators were concerned about properly adhering to the intent of various federal and state documents – which raised questions about whether phonemic awareness and phonics were to be separated. By 2022, these concerns were being raised by researchers and theorists about the proper role that letters should play in phonemic awareness instruction. This blog explains the value of combining PA and phonics instruction. The point of phonemic awareness teaching is to help students to perceive the individual language sounds ...

Okay, here is a quiz...  1. Does research show that reading to kids improves literacy? Yes or no.   If you read Jim Trelease's books, you're likely to get this one wrong. Reading to kids has been shown to improve kids' language development--and this might have a positive impact on reading--but no studies show that reading to kids improves their reading ability.... Really. 2. When you read to kids should you focus on picture books? Yes or no.   Research studies don't really tell us much about the impact of reading specific books on children's learning, but the key to having an impact on children's language ...

This week I am keynoting the California Reading Association and I plan to talk about reading comprehension. There are so many scary statistics these days about reading comprehension, and I see so much bad practice when it comes to teaching kids to think about text, that I hope this will be a timely reminder of some key ideas.   Some of the things that are scaring me:  Reading First kids are comprehending no better than other children in Title I programs.  Reading First teachers aren't teaching reading comprehension any differently than other teachers.  Instructional interventions for English language learners rarely improve their reading comprehension.  No matter ...

These days, I often hear a school’s approach to reading instruction described as “balanced.” What could be better? No one wants unbalanced literacy instruction, right? Obviously not.   But what does balance really mean? It can mean that teachers provide skills instruction but in the context of sustained silent reading, learning centers, book clubs, big book activities, minilessons and the like. In other words, it is a combination of instructional approaches that clearly make a difference in kids’ learning (as shown by research), and activities that may or may not make a learning difference (they might be good, but there is no ...

During the summer, a group issued the so-called “Broader, Bolder Approach” (BBA) statement. It called for economic and social responses to support greater educational progress for our children. Much was made of the statement because of its obvious contrast with Bush administration education policy that mainly has emphasized the changes that schools must make. Much to the consternation of some of my friends and colleagues, I signed that statement.   How can someone square the circle? How can I support NCLB and BBA? Frankly, I don’t find it to be any kind of contradiction—not even a stretch. I have said for years that I would ...

Reading First is the federal education program that encourages teachers to follow the research on how best to teach reading. The effort requires that teachers teach phonemic awareness (grades K-1), phonics (grades K-2), oral reading fluency (grades 1-3), vocabulary (grades K-3), and reading comprehension strategies (grades K-3). Reading First emphasizes such teaching because so many studies have shown that the teaching of each of these particular things improves reading achievement.   Reading First also requires that kids get 90-minutes of uninterrupted reading instruction each day because research overwhelmingly shows that the amount of teaching provided makes a big difference in kids’ learning. It ...

As a young teacher, I was aware that reading professors in colleges of education tended to be anti-textbook. They imagined a world in which all teachers would construct their own individual reading lessons every day, rather than following what they saw as the dismal guidance of the basal reader. Such views reigned during the “whole language era” (the 1980s and early 1990s) when textbooks were replaced by trade books, decoding instruction received less emphasis, and the idea that kids should just read and write rather than receiving explicit teaching (except for the occasional mini-lesson) became predominant. That was also the ...

Here we are at the start of another school year: a time of great new beginnings for many children and one of overwhelming anxiety for too many others. What can parents do to help ease their child into a successful new school year—particularly for struggling learners?   I suggest the following steps.  1. Talk to your child about school.   “What did you do in school today, Johnny?”   “Nothin.’”   Sadly, that is a pretty typical exchange between most parents and kids, and it does nothing for improving home-school relations, for making children feel supported, or for helping both teachers and kids to succeed.   As a parent and former ...

Much has been made in recent years of the political class’s embrace of the idea of test-based accountability for the schools. Such schemes are enshrined in state laws and NCLB. On the plus side, such efforts have helped move educators to focus on outcomes more than we traditionally have. No small change, this. Historically, when a student failed to learn it was treated as a personal problem—something beyond the responsibility of teachers or schools. That was fine, I guess, when “Our Miss Brooks” was in the classroom and teachers were paid a pittance. Not much public treasure was at risk, ...

Recently, I wrote about the Reading First Impact Study in this space. That struck a nerve and received much attention and generated many questions. Given that, here I will answer some of these inquiries. Feel free to send more along and I’ll see what I can do. Hope this helps readers to better understand this study; various political statements recently have suggested that many politicians, at least, don't get it. The Impact Study showed that the Reading First schools made no improvements in reading comprehension, so the program did not work, right? No, that’s not correct. The Reading First Impact Study collected ...