Category Archives: Education

The Picture Book that Predicted the Literacy Crisis: Part One

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The Prophetic Warning of “Goodnight iPad”

It caught my eye immediately as it slipped into the classroom library basket. “What is THAT?

My fifth grade student brought it over to me. She was a voracious reader, and picture books were not her usual fare.

But, like me, she must have recognized its connection to everyone’s favorite bedtime classic. I’d read Goodnight Moon so many times to my son that I knew it by heart.

It was 2011. Just one year after the iPad’s launch. A few fifth graders had them at home.

The impact of the digital world on my students was already evident

A few more had their own iPhones. One fifth grader, as I recall, already had hundreds of followers on Instagram. Once, she showed me a picture of a bug she’d posted. A bug. It had hundreds of likes.

The impact of the digital world on my students was already evident. Except for their technology class, their access was entirely outside of school at this time.

But it showed up in their conversations, in their interest in books and their homework, and at dismissal to carpool at the end of the day. The first thing the kids who had phones did when they left class was pull them out and scroll or text.

The big question often discussed among parents and teachers back then was Do children really need their own phones? As we would learn, the collective answer was going to be ‘yes.’

Goodnight iPad! I couldn’t wait for my next planning period when I could sit down and read it.

That reading was a pivotal moment for me. Looking back, I think it’s the moment when I knew I would eventually write The Invisible Toolbox.

I’d long been interested in how the simple practice of parents reading to their children regularly in the early years impacted their child’s future learning. Through my many years in the classroom and as a parent, I could see that it mattered a lot.

Goodnight iPad portended a future in which this was much less likely to happen.

Much in this charming story, penned cleverly by author Ann Droyd, is dated. It’s been 15 years after all. Remember Angry Birds? A 2009-launched massively popular video game. Blackberries? Originally a hand-held pager, it evolved into a smartphone.

Regardless, there were harbingers of truth that predicted exactly where we are now. They’re so obvious that it may be unnecessary to point them out. But I will anyway, because they’ve had a profound effect on children’s brain development and ability to learn.

Isolation and Fragmented Attention

Instead of one little bunny and the old lady whispering, “hush,” we have three generations of bunnies. Quite a few bunny children, a set of parents, and a grandmother—all absorbed in their own devices. Except for Granny.

Video games, movies on the big screen, iPhones, Facebook, YouTube videos. Dad appears to be reading a digital book on a Nook, Barnes and Noble’s now discontinued e-reader. Granny, trying to catch a few winks, grows frustrated watching all this from her rocker, unable to sleep because of the noise of the ‘bings, bongs, and beeps’ all around her.

For those of us of a certain age who can remember growing up with limited TV channels and no personal devices, the loss of family-oriented leisure time is obvious. No one is sharing anything. Each family member is absorbed in the world of their own device.

No one is sharing anything. Each family member is absorbed in the world of their own device

The one exception is the group gathered around the enormous TV watching a scene from the 1968 Stanley Kubrick sci-fi film classic 2001: A Space Odyssey. A group of monkeys are gathered around a black monolith which, in the movie, represents a “religious or mystical object of transcendence that triggers the final step in human evolution.”

The final step in human evolution.

Looks like the author was trying to tell us something.

The symbolism is apt. Like the monkeys, our attention has been fully captured by an inanimate, yet transcendent, object. We now have a window with a view into, arguably, everything in the world.

Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation (2024), might agree. He’s revised his former belief that anxiety is the most concerning fallout of the digital age. Haidt now believes that loss of attention is even more consequential. Our ability to think deeply and persevere is eroding.

But maybe even more damaging is that in taking us out of our lived world virtually, our ability to connect in the present is diminished.

Distracted Parents

In our story scenario Mom and Dad are every bit as absorbed in in their own devices as the kids are.

When sleepless Granny finally has had enough of the digital cacophony, she puts her foot down and yells, “Okay, that’s it!”

No gentle hushing here. She’s on her feet now, gathering up everyone’s devices.

Oh, the begging, the tears, and tugs of war. Mom, still dressed in her corporate suit—it was 2011 after all—is just as distressed as the kids are at having her Blackberry taken away.

Out it all goes—right out the window!

It’s a very funny scene, but sadly true at the same time. Parents are now just as addicted to their screens as their kids are.

We’ve all seen the family out for a meal together at a restaurant with everyone on their phones instead of engaging with one another. Or the toddler in the grocery store cart, Mom’s phone in hand, making it easier for her to get the errand over with.

Parents are now just as addicted to their screens as their kids are

Screens have become so vital to our everyday experience and so tempting for use as a babysitter that many parents haven’t paused to consider the effects on their children.

Common Sense Media recently reported that 40% of toddlers now have their own tablets by the time they’re two. More than 50% have their own device by age 4.

That statistic makes me shudder.

Studies of children’s brain scans show that children who have significant screen time have less white matter than those who not only don’t, but have also been read to. This means fewer neural connections are made, the very infrastructure necessary for language and literacy.

Even scans of children with less than two hours of daily screen time show reduced white matter.

The distraction of parents that includes lack of awareness about screen damage means that children may not be getting the attention they need from their parents—or the shared activity that would be the greatest gift they could receive from them.

Decline in Reading for Pleasure

This picture is the saddest and most telling one of all.

Gen X Bunny Dad may still read a novel, but he’s on his e-book, so the children don’t see actual book reading modeled by an adult.

The cobwebbed bookshelves are bare. Whatever books that remained are trashed along with the newspaper and the gooseneck reading lamp.

This doesn’t bode well for the bunny kids’ futures, and it’s unfortunately what many households look like today.

Children with no books in the home will be behind when they start kindergarten. When children struggle to learn to read, they’re much less likely to pick up a habit of reading for pleasure.

Children with no books in the home will be behind when they start kindergarten

The Children’s Reading Foundation reports that 4 out of 10 children entering kindergarten in the U.S. are three years behind their peers, and 75% of them will never catch up.

Jim Trelease, author of The Read Aloud Handbook, explained that vocabulary is the #1 predictor of school success. Numerous studies show that reading aloud to children even once daily in the earliest years exposes them to 296,660 more words than their peers who were never read to. Reading five books a day will result in a 1.4 million word advantage.

Children who are read to in the early years arrive at kindergarten with a lunchbox in one hand and an invisible toolbox in the other that holds the pre-literacy tools they need to learn to read. They’re also more likely to develop a reading for pleasure habit.

For a growing number of parents, however, the practice of daily shared reading is waning. A Harper Collins UK survey last year reported that more than half of the Gen Z parents asked did not “enjoy” reading to their children.

The decline in reading for pleasure means less cognitive development and lower test scores across all subjects.

In school age students, our nation’s report card the NAEP, indicates that reading scores continue to fall. In 2024, 69% of our 4th graders did not test as proficient readers. 70% of 8th graders were not proficient.

The ACT scores of college-bound high school seniors have dropped in all subjects. Children who don’t read well will struggle to learn in all areas.

College professors complain they’ve had to reduce the amount of expected reading for their classes drastically.

The loss of the habit of reading for pleasure has far-reaching results that profoundly affects learning potential.

Are we doomed to a future loss of attention and decline?

Is there a way back from our technological capture that, post-pandemic, means more time on devices even during the school day? Are we doomed to a future loss of attention and decline?

The author hints at the antidote in the final page.

In my next post I’ll address what parents can do to help insulate their child from the spell of these “mystical objects of transcendence.” Stay tuned.

Gen Z “Less Cognitively Capable” Than Their Parents

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And It Appears That Schools May Be Contributing to their Decline

Last week’s Senate hearing on the impact of technology, social media, and artificial intelligence on the mental health of children and teenagers is well worth a watch.

This is especially true if you’re new to understanding how smart devices have influenced education in the last fifteen years.

But if you can’t fit in the entire two hour discussion, be sure to spend just a few minutes watching former teacher, cognitive scientist, and author Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath’s introductory remarks.

Video source: Scrolling 2 Death

Horvath studies how learning happens physiologically. According to him, humans are biologically programmed to learn from other humans, and screens circumvent the process.

Horvath along with co-panelist Emily Cherkin advocate for eliminating technology as the primary tool for learning in schools.

During the pandemic, schools were shut down, Chromebooks were issued to each student, and became, of necessity, the primary means of instruction. When schools opened up again, students returned along with this new—or at least more intensively used—way of teaching and learning.

The result is that on top of the hours spent on screens during their free time (estimates vary widely from 1 to 7 hours) , an additional 4 to 6 hours of instructional time were added during the school day.

You would think our collective hair would be on fire with data like this, wouldn’t you?

The plummeting ACT scores in the graph above underscore Horvath’s conviction that the tech tools schools use are, if not causing, then correlated to a decline in our students’ cognitive ability.

You would think our collective hair would be on fire with data like this, wouldn’t you?

So why isn’t it?

Photo source: First Fish Chronicles on Substack

Horvath’s co-panelist Emily Cherkin has some answers.

In her recent Substack post “Don’t Ask the Barber if You Need a Haircut” (which you can read without a subscription if you’re on her email list at First Fish Chronicles), she explains that the EdTech industry is “expected to be worth up to $570 Billion by 2034.”

Yes, you read that correctly. 570 BILLION.

Coincidentally, Cherkin reports, an organization entitled the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) sent a letter ahead of the hearing to Senator Ted Cruz, the Chair of the Senate committee. The letter explained that there’s a big difference between screentime use OUTSIDE of school and the objective-driven instructional use of screens INSIDE school.

In other words, criticism and regulation of social media and technology use for kids in general is fine. But decisions about school screen use? This must be left to the experts.

Here’s the problem. The experts seem to be oblivious about what the data shows about EdTech and learning.

Take a look at the list of organizations Cherkin cites in her article that signed the CoSN letter prior to the hearing:

AASA, The School Superintendents Association

AESA, Association of Education Service Agencies

American Federation of School Administrators

American Federation of Teachers (AFT)

American Library Association (ALA)

Association of School Business Officials International (ASBO)

Benton Foundation

CoSN – The Consortium for School Networking

Consortium of State School Boards Association (COSSBA)

National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP)

National Association of Federally Impacted Schools (NAFIS)

National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS)

National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP)

National Catholic Educational Association

National Education Association (NEA)

SETDA (State Educational Technology Directors Association)

Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition (SHLB)

…the experts seem to be oblivious about what the data shows about EdTech and learning

These groups represent the people one expects to be most committed to children’s well-being and learning, the people that parents who aren’t educators themselves look to and trust.

Have the educational decision makers all simply been bought off by this big money industry? Or are the experts actually unaware when it comes to what children really need in order to learn?

In my opinion, both reasons are probably factors. I speak from over 30 years teaching in both public and independent schools.

Many teachers and administrators don’t really understand the biology of learning and the neurological complexity of what is goes on in the learning process.

In my book about the importance of reading aloud to children from the beginning, I describe this neurological phenomenon as the invisible toolbox— a metaphor for the connections that are made in the brain in the interplay of human connection and learning.

When EdTech companies market their wares promising personalized learning, guaranteed results, and the necessity of tech experience in the formative years for a future work force, many educators and administrators believe them.

But as Cherkin has shown, there’s also a lot of money at stake to keep the industry alive and booming.

Read my review of Screen Schooled: Two Veteran Teachers Expose How Technology Overuse is Making Our Kids Dumber (Clement and Miles, 2019) to learn about what the authors call The Education-Industrial Complex. They describe a network of oligarchs and politicians who have neither background nor expertise in education or child development, yet have an outsized influence on curriculum in the U.S.

As schools move to ban phones during the school day, the great irony is that screen use continues widely within schools. iPads and Chromebooks are essentially just oversized phones.

And, as Dr. Horvath explains, screens simply are not what the human brain needs for deep learning.

2024 NAEP Reading Scores Drop…Again

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Why This Was Not Surprising

Despite LOTS of federal money pouring out the door to schools after the pandemic and the resurgence of phonics instruction via the Science of Reading in the eternal reading wars, the 2024 Nation’s Report Card*, unveiled this week, continued to report unhappy results.

This did not surprise me.

What would have surprised me about this year’s results would have been if we had seen growth in each group. Here’s why.

As students returned to school post-pandemic, their one to one laptops returned with them. So did the heavily tech-based work that they’d done in distance learning.

What did this mean for students? It meant less time reading actual books.

Reading is now often limited to short passages on screens or even via audio books in class.

As a teacher for over 3 decades, it was always obvious to me that students who scored as proficient readers read not only what was assigned for class, but also books of their own choice.

As with any skill, proficiency comes with practice. Reading is no different.

Changing Expectations for Independent Reading

Last November The Atlantic published an article entitled “The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books” with the subheading: ‘To read a book in college, it helps to have read a book in high school.’

Expectations for students as readers have changed.

When a friend stepped in as a substitute teacher for a 10th and 11th grade high school English teacher who left for medical leave, he was given these instructions:

Don’t expect the kids to do any assigned reading outside of class.

You’ll read The Great Gatsby in class together via audiobook.

Then the kids will do their follow up questions independently on their Chromebooks.

This scenario occurred in a typical suburban school that included both working and middle class kids.

If students won’t do the assigned reading to prepare for class, is it likely they’re doing their own reading for pleasure at home? I think not.

Hence, there’s very little time spent actually reading.

Little practice equals low proficiency.

The cocktail of our kids’ over-saturation in technology both at home and at school combined with low expectations is a recipe for continued stagnation and decline in reading scores.

The 4th graders of 2024 were in kindergarten when schools were shut down, so their introduction to school was screen-based. The students who didn’t have parents at home who read to them were—and are—at a huge risk for reading failure.

When 69% of our nation’s 4th graders and 70% of our 8th graders are only able to read at a basic or below basic level, it has got to be a wake-up call.

It’s Past Time to Rethink the Role of Technology in the Classroom

Technology in schools is big business and was pushed into the classroom long before Covid without considering whether more time on screens is really what kids need developmentally.

Neuroscience has revealed that screen use physically changes the brain. These changes actually depress reading, language, and decision making capabilities. Check out this long-term study by Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Reading and Literacy Discovery Center to see just how detrimental technology can be on developing brains.

If educators are serious about encouraging kids to become independent readers, thus improving reading scores, it’s long past time to reconsider students’ time on screens in the classroom.

*The NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) administers reading and math tests to a cross section of 4th and 8th grade students all over the United States every two years. They target all demographics socially and economically and administer the tests in both public and private schools.

How to Build a Scaffold for Reading Comprehension

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God bless teachers.

From what I read online, teachers and literacy tutors and interventionists are working incredibly hard to build the content knowledge required to help their students improve their reading comprehension.

It’s one thing to learn to decode the words, but quite another to understand them.

Vocabulary and background knowledge are the foundation for comprehension.

Trust me, this is a heavy lift for teachers. It’s probably the most challenging aspect of teaching reading.

Why?

Because it’s a big wide world out there and there are a lot of words.

The more a child has been exposed to in terms of language, stories, and ideas when they come to school, the greater will be their ability to understand what they read when they are taught.

The most expedient way to help our children arrive at school “comprehension ready” is to read to them regularly from the beginning.

When we do this we inspire their curiosity which makes them hungry to know more about the big wide world and all the words.

And it makes reading comprehension a breeze. It really does.

Studies on “Reading Aloud to Children, Social Inequalities, and Vocabulary Development”

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The Evidence is Mounting…

Recent studies on the effects of speaking and reading to children in the preschool years confirm an important truth about where future literacy success begins.

A highly significant take-away is that poverty, lack of parental education, and even under-resourced schools, while they may be correlated statistically, are not necessarily the cause of poor literacy outcomes nor are they necessarily determinative.

This is very good news.

The more we learn about brain development in the first five years, the more obvious it is that those who care about children and literacy must focus our efforts on this period of life.

Last spring I titled my talk at the World Literacy Summit in Oxford “How the First Five Years Frame Future Literacy.”

Two studies published recently corroborated this claim.

Having spent decades teaching, I had reached this conclusion long ago. Most teachers understand that a child’s exposure to language and books before they ever set foot in kindergarten makes all the difference when they are eventually taught to read.

But research and studies are important too and difficult to ignore. So here they are.

How Do Infants and Toddlers Learn Language?

One study reported in Neuroscience News sampled over 1000 infants and toddlers from 12 countries speaking 43 languages to understand how language is learned.

They discovered that the amount of speech children hear is the “primary driver of language development.”

Not socioeconomics, or gender, or multilingualism.

In a nutshell, children who hear more speech, understand and produce more speech.

The take-away for parents? Talk to your babies.

Who Benefits from Information About Shared Reading and Access to Books?

Another study came from the IZA Institute of Labor Economics. Based in Bonn, Germany, IZA’s research mission is to “focus on understanding economic inequality, particularly the central role of labor markets and the psychological underpinnings of human behavior.”

We know that literacy outcomes have everything to do with a future skilled and employable labor force. This study aimed to discover how we can foster that.

The research team wanted to understand the impact of setting up a ‘randomized controlled trial’ of a shared book reading intervention targeting 4 year old children in socially mixed neighborhoods in Paris.

We selected a large, random sample of families and provided parents with free books, information on the benefits of SBR (shared book reading) and tips for effective reading practices.

The vocabulary of children in both treated and control groups were assessed both before and after the intervention.

Here is what they discovered:

Children from all families in the intervention group greatly increased their shared book reading frequency and improved their vocabulary.

The ‘low-educated and immigrant’ families improved their vocabulary as much as those from ‘high-educated, native families’.

Also significantly, continuous positive vocabulary growth occurred in disadvantaged families, despite the fact that these children often attended poorly resourced schools.

What Do These Studies Reveal About Where Literacy Begins?

Speaking and reading to young children before they begin school—regardless of their socioeconomic status, immigrant status, gender, level of parental education, or multilingualism—results in language and vocabulary development.

Since a child’s vocabulary is the number one predictor of school success, this is critically important to understand.

What these studies show is that if we want to have a real and lasting impact on literacy outcomes, we need to focus our attention and resources on parents and caregivers of children from infancy through the preschool years.

This is what will set all children up for success.

Reading “The Invisible Toolbox” in Turkey

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One of the Greatest Gifts Resonates Across Cultures

When I wrote The Invisible Toolbox after thirty years in the classroom, I never dreamed my little book, translated and repackaged, would find its way into the hands of a group of mothers halfway across the world in Turkey.

But as I learned last week, its message, that explains why reading aloud is one of the greatest gifts a parent can give, connects across cultures.

Mr. Nabi Avci, a teacher in Konya, Turkey, offered the mothers of his students a gift of his own. He recently led a book discussion group so they could learn how to support their children’s literacy development and love of learning.

Last week he reached out to me via Twitter/X and asked me to drop in on their afternoon meeting to say ‘hello’ via Zoom. That proved to be impossible as when I attempted to join, error code 1142 informed me that this meeting was ‘not accessible in the United States at this time.’

Since I was unable to join the group, I sent a video instead, and Mr. Nabi Avci emailed this report:

We learned much from your book. It was really helpful. Mothers in our group started reading aloud to their children.

He sent these wonderful photos too.

In the midst of the current turmoil in the world, I find it heartening to be reminded that people of good will, no matter their culture, love their children and want what is best for them.

Thank you, Mr. Nabi Avci, for celebrating literacy and for reaching out to me…from one teacher to another.

Reading Comprehension: When Kids Struggle

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The Missing Tools That Make Reading Comprehension So Hard to Teach Directly

Why is reading comprehension so difficult to teach?

Because it’s predicated on three tools that are effortlessly gained when a child is read to, yet harder to achieve when they have to be consciously taught.

~A large and rich vocabulary

~A well-developed attention span

~Access to a wider world (what teachers call background of experience)

These tools are prerequisites for understanding what is read.

When a child arrives at school without them, learning to read and understanding what they read can be a Herculean challenge.

Teachers know this. And they work hard to build them.

But the sad reality is that 75% of children who begin school without these tools will never catch up.

A child can be spared this struggle so easily.

Just one picture book a day results in…

~Exposure to over a million words by kindergarten.

~A well-developed attention span.

~Background knowledge that helps them understand what they read.

Then reading comprehension follows. Easily.

For a quick audio review of The Invisible Toolbox by the youth services librarian of the Westmont Public Library, find it here.

The Seldom Discussed and Oh-So-Simple Solution to the Literacy Crisis

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In many cases, it’s not that Johnny can’t read…

That American children are struggling with reading has worked its way into the media conversation at last. It’s about time.

First came the “news” that the 2021 post-Covid NAEP (our nation’s report card) reading scores for 4th and 8th graders dropped for the first time in decades:

Nearly two thirds of our students don’t read proficiently!

What wasn’t reported is the fact that nearly this same percentage has been the case for some time.

Then in the fall of 2022, Emily Hanford’s “Sold a Story” podcast recast the eternal Reading Wars. This time, the opposing camps are Lucy Calkins’ Balanced Literacy vs. the Science of Reading. Lucy Calkins’ curriculum did not come out well in this. The media blew up over it, and various states have banned Balanced Literacy’s 3-cueing strategy for figuring out unknown words and poured money into retraining teachers in the Science of Reading, aka Structured Reading, with its heavy emphasis on systematic phonics instruction.

I couldn’t help wondering. Are there really primary teachers who—no matter what curriculum they use—don’t teach phonics? How in the world can you not in the teaching of beginning reading?

The next big thing that made news and drew the attention of the world beyond education insiders was the release of the film “The Right to Read” on Juneteenth of 2023. Promoted by LeVar Burton of Reading Rainbow fame, its aim is to shine a light on the literacy crisis as a symptom of societal injustice and to promote the Science of Reading as the solution and path to equity.

Two things about all of this are especially important.

First is the acknowledgment that we actually have a literacy crisis. When 65% of our 4th and 8th graders don’t read proficiently, that’s a problem. Reading well is foundational for all learning and has lifelong implications for individuals as well as society.

According to the United States Department of Justice, “The link between academic failure and delinquency, violence, and crime is welded to reading failure.” Over 70% of inmates in America’s prisons cannot read above a fourth grade level.

The second good thing is we’re taking a hard look at how reading is taught.

The reality is that college teacher training programs don’t actually teach prospective teachers how to teach reading. New teachers learn on the job, and what they learn is generally determined by what is gleaned from colleagues and the curriculum that the school adopts.

It can take several years of experience in the classroom for teachers to understand that effective reading instruction involves many essential threads. The wholistic approach and appreciation of literature that Balanced Literacy celebrates and the systematic direct instruction promoted by the Science of Reading are both necessary in good teaching.

Excellent teaching and fundamentally sound comprehensive reading curriculum are extremely important.

“Our bigger problem now is Johnny doesn’t read.”

But here’s the thing.

If a student is well taught and yet does not read outside of classroom instruction, it’s unlikely that student will become a proficient reader.

Like any skill, the practice of reading matters when it comes to mastery.

In many cases, it’s not that “Johnny can’t read.” Our bigger problem now is Johnny doesn’t read.

Yes, technology has a huge part to play in this, but we’ll leave that for another discussion.

What I will do is remind you how children become motivated to choose to read. Parents and teachers both have important roles to play here.

Let’s start with parents who, I would argue, have the most critical role. I’ve written about this in The Invisible Toolbox, explaining in as concise and direct a way as possible, how reading from birth affects a child’s development and future readiness for school.

Repeated exposure to books is a bedrock foundation for future reading for pleasure and makes the road ahead much smoother for a child.

“While it’s ideal to begin reading to your child from the get-go, if you haven’t, it’s not too late.”

Up until adolescence, generally speaking, children—even if they don’t appear to—crave the time and attention of their parents, so it is possible to begin a nightly read aloud habit even with older children. They may balk a bit at first, but if you choose a great book to share, that should quickly dissipate.

While it’s ideal to begin reading to your child from the get-go, if you haven’t, it’s not too late.

Which brings me to the next thing parents can do. Visit the place where you can borrow books—for free! Your local library. Do this together and do it regularly. Help your child get their own library card and choose their own books.

While you’re at the library, pick out some books for yourself. Let your child see you reading. Talk about books, yours and theirs.

Set clear boundaries for technology and enforce them.

Encourage your child’s daily reading habit. Make sure there is space in their day or evening for it.

Once you’ve done this for a while, your child may begin to choose to read themselves. Eventually, they may find their homework goes more quickly, becomes easier for them. Their grades even improve! This is the time to gently make the connection for them.

“I’ve noticed that all this reading for fun you’ve been doing, seems to be making school more interesting for you…” Then take them to the nearest bookstore or second hand shop and let them buy a book to celebrate.

“Teachers have an important role here too in supporting reading for pleasure.”

Teachers have an important role here too in supporting reading for pleasure.

Make sure that you teach great books that you love as much as they will. Your genuine enthusiasm and interest matter if you want them to engage.

Also, be sure to provide opportunities for students to choose their own books.

When I taught fifth grade literature, I required students to choose a book a month within a particular genre and create a project after reading it. This assignment provided for both accountability and choice. It also ensured their exposure to various genres they might not choose on their own. For instance, a student who reads nothing but fantasy books might discover they enjoy historical fiction too.

At the end of the school year, students often reported this monthly book report activity as one of their favorite things. Kids love hands on projects. They often discovered an interest in genres they’d never explored before.

Another thing teachers can do is to actually talk to kids about the importance of reading, explaining why and how it makes a difference in their schooling and lives.

A teacher can also help students make the connection between their choices and the outcomes.

At the end of each trimester, my literature students took an Accelerated Reader standardized achievement test. The results showed their growth throughout the year, their independent reading levels, and also indicated how they performed compared to students that the test was normed on in their age group.

With my fifth graders, I always shared these scores with them–privately, of course. I explained how standardized tests work and how the choices they make, even outside of the classroom, affect their scores.

As their awareness grew as the year progressed, it was interesting to see how students who previously hadn’t paid attention began to care. Once they understood how the tests actually functioned and how the choices they made—and believe me, they knew what they were—actually showed up in an objective way, it was empowering for them.

This student report indicates a leap from the 27th percentile to the 73rd, quite a jump even when factoring in possible summer slide to account for the low beginning of the year score. The intervention included a chat with a parent who didn’t realize two hours of gaming each school night was an issue. Video games were moved to weekends only, homework began to be turned in, and the student reported to me that “Now, when I’m bored, I read.”

For teachers, facilitating students’ awareness and encouraging their agency in making good choices about choosing to read go hand in hand with teaching the skills and helping students find pleasure in reading.

The last thing I’ll mention that I recommend teachers do is something I would do at the beginning of each school year when parents came to meet me at Back to School Night.

I talked to parents about the importance of their child reading for pleasure outside of the classroom.

I encouraged parents—even my fifth graders’ parents whose children were already independent readers—to read aloud to them and enjoy books together. I reminded them that adolescence was around the corner and that reading aloud together during this time in their child’s life was a wonderful way to connect and nurture their bond in preparation for the days ahead when peers become ever more important.

At the end of one school year, one of the mothers sought me out to tell me that she’d taken my suggestion with her two sons, one a fifth grader, the other a seventh grader. She created a family read aloud ritual that school year and the boys loved it.

Her sons were already voracious readers for pleasure, so her aim wasn’t about helping them find their way down that road. It was about connection through creating space for family time together and sharing the pleasure of a good book.

When it comes right down to it, isn’t that what reading for pleasure is all about?

A child who reads for pleasure will not only have the tools and skills they need for school and beyond, they’ll have a habit that the English novelist Anthony Trollope once said “…lasts when all other recreations are gone. It will last until your death. It will make your hours pleasant to you as long as you live.”

“The Invisible Toolbox” is Off to Oxford

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World Literacy Summit, 2023

This spring I’ll be crossing the pond to be one of the presenters at The World Literacy Summit 2023. People from 85 countries who care about improving literacy around the world will gather in Oxford to share experiences and ideas.

If you can’t get to England, but are interested in attending, there’s good news. There’s also a virtual option for registration. You can check out all the details here.

In the meantime, if you’re curious about my talk, have a look at the overview that I submitted to the selection committee below:

“The Invisible Toolbox: How the First Five Years Frames Future Literacy”

“Neuroscience confirms that children who have been read to regularly from birth arrive at school on day one with “invisible toolboxes” full of all the pre-literacy tools that they need in order to be successful in school and beyond.  

While it’s generally understood that reading aloud to a child is a good idea, many new and expectant parents don’t fully understand why doing so in the early years is critical for a child’s academic and social-emotional development. 

What are these tools? Why do they make such a difference? How can we educate parents, in this age of distraction, to understand that reading aloud to their child is one of the greatest gifts they can give and support them in doing so? 

We will explore these questions through the lens of the research of Dr. John Hutton (Pediatrician and Director of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Reading and Literacy Discovery Center), the data of various literacy and government organizations, and my own experience as a teacher of reading and writing for decades in the elementary school classroom. 

We’ll also discuss organizations in the U.S. and beyond that are reaching into communities with limited access to books that may also have language and cultural obstacles that prevent them from filling their children’s “invisible toolboxes.” 

As I’ve begun piloting my own program to gift The Invisible Toolbox and related resources, I’ve been heartened and amazed to see what tremendous work is going on in the nonprofit sector. But there is still much to do. 

Reaching people in the earliest stages of their parenting and helping them develop their own tools so that they can pass them along is one of the greatest gifts that those of us who care deeply about literacy and children can give.”

See you in Oxford!

“Sold a Story:” The Reading Wars, Redux?

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The Battle Between Whole Language and Phonics in Reading Instruction Rages On

One of my most vivid memories–and there aren’t many—from long ago college education methods classes was my reading professor’s vehement proclamation:

“Phonics isn’t reading!”

She was allied with the whole language school of thought (currently known as balanced literacy) that emphasizes reading programs composed of rich literature experiences and critical thinking (think big picture) over and against the analysis and study of words and their component parts (small picture) that is the focus of phonics instruction.

I didn’t understand then why these two important elements were philosophically pitted against each other as it seemed to me that both were necessary aspects of good teaching.

I do understand why now. Like so much in this world that appears inexplicable, it all comes down to money and politics. And, perhaps, decisions that don’t necessarily have the best interests of children at heart.

I finally made time to listen to journalist Emily Hanford’s podcast, “Sold a Story.” It’s a fascinating investigative piece that aims to explain the pandemic of reading failure in this country.

According to Hanford, the culprit is an inadequate curriculum that, despite its ineffectiveness, has been widely adopted and taught for decades.

Lucy Calkins’ program, aka Columbia Teachers College Readers and Writers Project, is the villain. Hanford and those she interviewed for the podcast claim that it fails because it teaches children a superficial cueing system to sound out words, and neglects phonics instruction.*

Is there an answer to this dilemma? Another curriculum to take its place? Why, yes, there is.

The antidote is The Science of Reading, an updated moniker for a school of thought that is not really new at all. Proponents of this method point to years of data collection that indicate the systematic teaching of phonics is the key to reading success. If you currently follow the world of education and reading curriculum, the Science of Reading is everywhere.

“Sold a Story” has been getting widespread media coverage since it first aired in the fall of 2022. Google Lucy Calkins or the Science of Reading and articles will come up from multiple sources including a New Yorker piece entitled “The Rise and Fall of Vibes-Based Literacy.” As one might guess, it’s highly critical of Calkins.

“…we now know that the first five years are critical in preparing students for learning to read once they begin school.”

I found the podcast fascinating as it tells the history of the evolution of reading instruction and curriculum from the 1990s to the present. Because I taught during these years and had first hand experience with the programs Hanford covers, including Reading Recovery and Readers and Writers Workshop, it was satisfying to hear their shortcomings addressed.

However, while Hanford has an important story to tell, it doesn’t explain the entire truth about the reason for our literacy crisis.

My own experience teaching elementary school reading for 32 years confirmed to me that good instruction includes multiple elements, all of which are essential. Rich literature experiences, explicit phonics instruction, sight words, vocabulary, comprehension strategies, background experiences…all of these threads are necessary for an effective reading program.

Comprehensive reading instruction in elementary school that includes all of the components named above is important. Yet, we now know that the first five years of life are critical in preparing students for learning to read once they begin school. When parents read daily to their children they gain all the pre-literacy tools that they need to be successful. Children who do not have this experience enter school already behind.

Unfortunately, Hanford not only doesn’t mention this critical factor, she is dismissive of and seems to be unaware of its importance. But then, the focus of her podcast is on what happens once children enter school.

Hanford’s purpose is to expose the story behind why and how a particular reading curriculum in the United States gained the prominence and ubiquitousness that it did and made an awful lot of money along the way.

I look forward to learning more about the Science of Reading curriculum when I attend the World Literacy Summit in April. One can only hope that it includes all of the rich elements that good reading instruction requires and puts to rest the Reading Wars once and for all.

But I won’t be holding my breath.

You can listen to “Sold a Story” here.

* In response to recent controversy, Calkins has updated her curriculum to include a phonics component.