Literacy Blogs

Previously, I discussed two observational studies (a landmark from the 1970s and a valuable recent effort). Both aimed to determine the amount of reading comprehension instruction in American schools. That’s an endeavor that requires clear definitions. According to the older study conducted by Dolores Durkin (1978), comprehension instruction included any action teachers took to help children “understand or work out the meaning of more than a single, isolated word.” The newer study, this one by Philip Capin and colleagues (2024), didn’t provide a definition as much as a list of acceptable actions: teaching word meaning knowledge, developing background knowledge, selecting texts ...

Blast from the past: Originally posted February 2, 2013; re-issued October 12, 2024. Over the past 15 years, I have issued several blogs concerning the value of teaching students to read more challenging texts than we have used in instruction in the past. Despite a growing body of evidence showing that teaching students at their “instructional reading level” provides no learning benefits – and that sometimes it limits learning – most teachers continue to avoid challenging text by moving kids to easier text, reading texts to the students, or replacing texts with other sources of information (e.g., videos, teacher presentations). ...

Teacher question: I understand your claims that teaching students with grade level texts instead of instructional level texts increases children’s opportunities to learn. However, what about children’s emotional needs, self-esteem, motivation, and self-starting skills when text is challenging. Children who struggle with sight words or sounding out words who are given a hard piece of text will shut down and refuse to try or will act out in the classroom. I always thought that the purpose of avoiding frustration level texts was to avoid frustrating children who were trying to learn to read. What am I missing? RELATED: Teaching Students to Use Context Shanahan ...

Last week, I posted five literacy education pet peeves. I whined about the lack of balance in balanced literacy; calls to end the reading wars that fail to address their root cause; the use of research to cover one’s tracks rather than to support sound decisions; the use of drive-by conferencing in place of deep discussions of text; and instructional schedules tuned to teachers’ comfort levels rather than kids’ learning needs. As promised, here are five more. Pet Peeve #6:  Research claims based on the wrong kinds of research. Recently, a claim of mine was challenged on Twitter. Someone pointed out that there ...

I was observing writing instruction in an 8th grade suburban classroom. The experienced teacher was quite skilled and he both managed his classroom well and was sophisticated in his ability to interpret literary text and to engage students in reading that penetrated deeply into the meaning of the text. On this day his lesson focused providing students with tools that would overcome writing blocks. His students often struggled to figure out what to write about; they agonized when given a writing assignment. He demonstrated his strategy and directed the students to give it a try. One especially bright young man towards the ...

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 ...

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 ...

Welcome to 2018.   During the interim, several intriguing questions have been submitted and soon I’ll be taking those on. This posting responds not to your questions, but to some public comments made by various colleagues concerning complex text and its use in instruction. My comments are responses to their handwringing over the requirement that we teach kids to read complex text.  We should be concerned about the use of complex text for instruction because text complexity has a negative correlation with reading comprehension and reading fluency.   The premise here is correct, but the conclusion is false. This is what logicians refer to as the ...

Blast from the Past:  This entry was originally published on May 17, 2015 and reposted on July 13, 2017. Between the two publication dates much has occurred in the world of challenging text. Various authorities who tout schemes for matching kids to texts have made changes to how they do the matching. In other words, they took criteria for identifying the instructional level and changed the numbers so that kids would be in somewhat more difficult text. That's a good thing as it means more kids will now get opportunities to read materials at their interest levels or their intellectual ...

Blast from the Past: This entry was first posted on May 13, 2015 and it was reposted on September 24, 2018. This question has been coming up again recently, so I took a look at my original answer. It is still pretty darn good. Older students have been telling me how much they hate working in what they call the “stupid books,” meaning books at their supposed reading levels that are below their levels of intellectual and social functioning. Despite claims by proponents of “guided reading” giving kids such a steady diet of easy-reading books is definitely not in their best interests. Teacher question:             How much of a "gap" can ...