Literacy Blogs

Letter I received: I found these troubling quotes in the Report of the National Reading Panel: "Fluency, the ability to read a text quickly, accurately, and with proper expression..." "Fluent readers can read text with speed, accuracy, and proper expression..." My dismay is due to (a) listing rate first in both statements, and (b) using "quickly" and "with speed" rather than "rate" (or "appropriate rate" as in the CCSS fluency standard). I wonder if this wording may have encouraged folks who now embrace the notion that "faster is better" (e.g. "better readers have higher DIBELS scores--wcpm") In my own work I often refer to Stahl & Kuhn (2002) ...

Last week I answered a teacher’s question about free reading time during the school day and its relationship to reading motivation (e.g., making kids like reading). I pointed out that such reading time has a rather weak relationship with learning (various kinds of instruction exert about an 800% greater influence on learning than on having kids reading on their own during the school day) and that the connection with motivation appears to be even more tenuous. I then compared the DEAR/SSR practice unfavorably with theories and research on what motivates human beings. Not surprisingly that generated much comment. Although the following ...

Blast from the Past: This entry was first published on October 4, 2016 and was reissued on February 29, 2016. The reason for revisiting this one is the steady accumulation of new research data supporting my original contentions. The latest studies are reporting that independent reading can have positive impacts on learning, but that these payoffs take a very long time to manifest and are quite small (Eklund & Torpa, in press). Studies are also showing that reading achievement has a decidedly bigger impact on motivation than the other way around (Hebbecker, Förster, & Souvignier, 2019). Teacher question: You have attacked DEAR ...

Teacher question: I am looking for research articles on how reading at your independent level helps increase your reading ability.  And I am looking for articles that talk about the volume of reading necessary to make gains in reading.  Do you know of a couple articles on these topics? Also, which journals do you recommend:  Reading Teacher and Journal of Literacy Research?  I will be using these to do some research for my county. I am looking for articles that are teacher friendly and easier to read.  Shanahan response: There is a body of research that explores the impact of reading on various outcomes ...

Blast from the Past: This entry was first issued on September 6, 2016 and it was reissued on June 27, 2020. This week several readers on social media have reposted some of my earlier writings on teaching with complex text, and this month American Educator published a new article of mine on this topic. Given that, I thought it might be a good time to pull this blog back which suggests several practical steps to teaching students to make sense of complex text. If a better question doesn't emerge in the next couple of weeks, perhaps i'll write a new ...

Teacher letter: I am now a literacy specialist in a middle school and am hoping you can give me your opinion on the process of the guided reading method of reading instruction. I completely agree with you that the F&P levels are ludicrously low and it would be difficult to transition students to the end goal of CCSS using these levels. However, I’m curious what you think about the usefulness of listening to individuals read in a small group, using running records to track a struggling reader’s progress with CCSS grade-level text used in the classroom, and explicitly teaching strategies and vocabulary in ...

I've been reading your blog articles very carefully, and in one entry you recommended having the kids read a lot during the literary block time (and all other subjects), suggesting possibly 50% of the time should be spent reading. My question is how much of that reading time should be teacher-led (for close reading and complex text), and how much should be just independent work?            All of the school reading time—or almost all of it—should be teacher-led. Kids are sent to school to learn things. Teachers are paid to teach things. There is no question that kids ...