Literacy Blogs

Teacher question: I’ve read what you’ve written about the instructional level. You claim that there is no such thing. Haven’t you ever heard of the “zone of proximal development (ZPD)?” Shanahan responds: I’ve heard of it, but if you think what I’ve written is contradictory to it, then I suspect you don’t really understand the ZPD construct or its relationship to this aspect of reading. Let’s start with the “instructional level” idea first. A century ago, it was common practice for reading teachers to place children in different reading books based on their abilities. For instance, one Wisconsin survey from 1918 shows that the majority ...

Reading instruction is a faddish thing. We reading teachers can be as passionate and fickle as a gaggle of teens cooing over Billy Eilesh or TikTok. We go through periods of using textbooks or avoiding them; embracing phonics or eschewing it. The educational pendulum swings to and fro. A new reading program or approach is discovered, seems to be everywhere, then one wonders whatever happened to it…. Wisconsin Design, SRA cards, Whole Language, learning styles… the beat goes on.   One thing that never seems to change, however, is the ubiquity of “round robin reading.” This is the practice of having one child ...

Teacher question: I know you advocate the idea of teaching reading with more complex text. But what about motivation? Won’t this approach discourage students? Shanahan response: I do support the idea of teaching reading with grade level texts. The theory that there is a magical way to match kids to books that will increase learning simply hasn’t panned out. Studies of the instructional level find that it at best makes no difference – that is, kids learn as much from grade level text as they do from instructional level ones. And, in the worst cases, the studies show that those easier text placements ...

Parent question: As a parent, I’m worried about my children being out of school during the pandemic. Our district still hasn’t decided whether or how to open again this fall, so it isn’t even clear if they will be going back to school. They did their distance learning most of the time this spring, but those online meetings with the teachers and the assignments they had to do don’t seem to be enough. What should I be doing at home? Shanahan respond: Usually the questions I’m asked can be answered from research or my own experiences as a teacher or school administrator. That’s ...

Teacher question: Could you recommend a strong vocabulary curriculum that my school could adopt? Shanahan responds: Because I work with various companies, I never recommend particular programs. However, while there are vocabulary programs, this is an area where teachers are often expected to go their own way. Given that, let me suggest the scope of an outstanding vocabulary curriculum. My focus here is on what needs to be taught, rather than on the instructional approaches needed to accomplish this. Overall, an ideal vocabulary curriculum would encourage the teaching of six things. First, the ideal vocabulary curriculum would aim to increase students’ knowledge of the meanings of ...

Teacher question: I very much like your idea of teaching students to read with grade level books. However, I’ve always taught with guided reading groups, trying to match my students to books that they can already read reasonably well. I don’t know how to go about what you are recommending. Help! Shanahan responds: As a primary grade teacher, I, too, always taught reading like that; the same way teachers had taught me so long ago (and the same way teachers usually have taught reading for more than 100 years). It is hard to change ancient traditions on the basis of research or anything else. ...