Literacy Blogs

Originally posted July 31, 2012; re-posted September 7, 2017. Although I posted these comments 5 years ago, these questions continue to come up frequently at my presentations, particularly with regard to how large a gap can we scaffold with older students. Theoretically, the answer is that there is no reading gap that can’t be scaffolded, but there are practicalities that impose such limits in regular classroom life. I recently received the following letter and thought you might be interested in my responses: “I found your August 21, 2011, blog post on "Rejecting Instructional Level Theory" eye-opening and helpful.  I'm a high school ...

Usually, posts to this site just sit at the bottom of my blog entries. If you click on the title of one of my entries you can see what someone might have said about my thoughts.   However, today, I was pleased to accept the entry of someone who I deeply admire, so I wanted to highlight it a bit. Marilyn Jager Adams weighed in on my high school phonics blog and argues for why technology might get us out of the unfortunate quandry that I described. As I say, normally, I do not tout the responses and that is especially true ...

Why aren’t we doing more for adolescent literacy?   The federal government invests a whole lot more in “kid literacy” than in teen literacy (we invest nearly $20 billion per year on Head Start, Reading First, and Title I reading programs, and about $30 million on Striving Readers). The same pattern is true in the states as well, and if you look at school standards, accountability monitoring, and the professional development of teachers, you see a definite tilt towards younger kids when it comes to reading.   It’s not just the inputs that differ either. National Assessment data show that kids are improving more ...

Dr. Shanahan, I am a mother of a child with a reading disability (as well as processing and short term memory) who will be entering middle school in the fall. Our middle school is planning on heterogeneously grouping the students in reading/language arts classes. As I'm sure you know this would be the lowest level readers blended with college level readers. Also, reading interventions will be cut from every day to every other day. I am a little concerned about the implications this may have on the students. Do you happen to know what research says about this concept? What are ...

There is growing interest and concern in the reading of older students (grades 4-12). There are many reasons for this, but ultimately it comes down to the fact that most thoughtful observers are convinced that most students leave high school with insufficient reading and writing skills--insufficient for college success or economic participation.   Over the past few years, we have seen growth in the numbers of reading programs aimed at a student in the upper grades (including my own AMP program. I believe that, once we get through the presidential election, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act will be reauthorized, for the first time ...