Literacy Blogs

Blast from the Past: This entry first appeared on March 11, 2023, and is being reissued on July 25, 2026. The reason for bringing it back is due to the great loss of instruction that has occurred since the COVID disaster. Chronic absenteeism rates have soared, and many kids aren’t even coming to school (Barragan Torres, 2025; U. S. Department of Education, 2025). These days, schools are often struggling with teacher absences too (Hansen, Aggarwal, & Wagner, 2025). This blog explains why amount of reading instruction is so important and it  provides practical advice about how to make every minute ...

Teacher question: There is much interest in many states to reduce the number of student contact days.  The typical 180 student contact days are being questioned and often replaced with fewer instructional days that are often only a few minutes longer.  Is there any research on four-day weeks versus the typical 180 school day calendar? Shanahan responds: Amount of instruction is an important variable in academic achievement. Usually, if we increase the amount of teaching by a reasonable amount, we tend to see increases in learning. From eyeballing the research studies, I’d estimate that 20-30 hours more reading instruction per year, tends to lead to ...

Teacher question: I’m a fourth-grade teacher. This year, because of the COVID shutdowns, I’m seeing more students than ever before who don’t know how to decode. I don’t see how I can teach them what I have in previous years, and I don’t have the ability to deal with the decoding problems. Our district is making a long needed serious effort to upgrade to phonics in our K-1 classrooms, but my students won’t benefit from that. What can I do?RELATED: Shedding Light on Reading Skills and Strategies Shanahan responds: Over the past few weeks, I’ve been hearing these kinds of complaints from across the ...

This week the Thomas Fordham Institute released a new provocative report, Social Studies Instruction and Reading Comprehension. It says U.S. schools spend “excessive amounts of time” teaching the English Language Arts (ELA) and not enough time on social studies. In fact, they claim that this imbalance is lowering reading achievement. Kids will read better if they get less reading instruction and more social studies teaching. I’ve long argued for what they call out here as excessive. To reach the reading levels we aspire to, children need lots of reading and writing instruction (and, at least for English learners, lots of ...

Teachers' questions: Can you point us to any research regarding the practice of Book In a Bag - sending leveled readers home with students each night? What do you think of “Books on the Bus?” Shanahan response: I know of no research on either of these methods for increasing kids’ access to books. I checked both PscyInfo and Google for sources, and nada! I’m not surprised, both of these schemes were local school district ideas that captured media attention—and then spread from one district to another. I must admit I like both ideas. Generally. In both cases, kids are encouraged to read. Can’t fault that. In both, books are made available for kids to ...

Summer is almost upon us. The days are growing longer, the sun is higher in the sky, and soon school will be over for the year. Our children’s thoughts now turn to swimming, skateboards, baseball, and bike riding. Unfortunately, for far too many of kids, summer vacation is a time for forgetting. You’ve probably heard that “if you don’t use it, you’ll lose it.” That’s certainly true about reading. Kids who don’t read over the summer regress. Their hard-earned reading skills decline. Boys and girls who manage to keep the rust off their reading, don’t suffer a summer reading drop.  By reading and writing throughout the summer, they may ...

The last couple weeks I’ve clarified the definition of “independent reading” and explored the impact of kids doing required reading on their own at school. Independence is obviously a gradient; the independence teachers often refer to isn’t about whether kids must read or not (it is usually required in these schemes), but it is about who picks the texts and whether there is any accountability for the reading. By “independent reading,” these teachers really are talking about self-selection of the texts. Given the importance of literacy in our society it is essential that we teach students to read well. With regard to the learning impact of independent reading, the ...

Recently I was interviewed by Fatherly, a website that focuses on providing parenting advice to dads. They wanted some book recommendations for babies, toddlers, and kindergartners. This link will connect you to the first in their series on this topic, and below I provide elaborated answers to these timely questions. https://www.fatherly.com/play/books/best-books-for-babies/ https://www.fatherly.com/play/best-books-for-toddlers/ https://www.fatherly.com/play/books/best-books-for-your-kindergartner/    What is the ideal form of baby books? Babies very early on exhibit what is called the palmar reflex… that is if something touches or grazes their palms, their little hands lock on it. I guess that keeps them from falling out of trees or something. Try touching a finger or your hair ...

I’m vacationing in Aix-en-Provence. I’ve written before about teaching myself to read French, and now I’m enrolled in a spoken French class. Très hard!!!   Maybe not much of a vacation, and, yet, I’m gaining valuable insights into what we must do to teach successfully with complex text.   Our tour includes about a dozen people; some are studying French, and some are not. Because our group is petite, they could only provide two French options. One for absolute beginners, and the other a mid-level French course attended by immigrants to France.   My self-taught reading lessons—and sporadic forays with Duolingo and Rosetta Stone—placed me well beyond the beginner class. The advanced class is ...

            Lately, I’ve run into a lot of teachers and school administrators who are all pumped up about the Reading Workshop or Readers’ Workshop.             They tell me that they don’t want to use textbooks anymore. Don’t want to teach novels. Don't seem to really want to teach much of anything.             They believe that the trick to teaching reading is not teaching it—or at least not teaching it very much. Mini-lessons are in the saddle and independent reading is how they want students to experience the English class.             I’m skeptical. If this were a new idea, I’d probably be more accepting. However, this influential ...