Literacy Blogs

Blast from the Past: First posted on February 15, 2019 and reposted on February 10, 2023. This entry seems timely given recent legislative efforts to impose early literacy assessments aimed at identifying dyslexia. Legislatures across the country have been passing laws requiring screening and monitoring assessments. However, when you look at the states that have such legislation we're not seeing improvements in reading achievement. That reminds me that there is a very small research literature on the positive impact of early assessment on learning. Despite potential benefits of early screening, it only really helps if it leads to instructional efforts ...

Blast from the Past: Four years ago, I posted this blog. These days -- post COVID -- this question is coming up even more often, and more insistently than then. A lot of instruction was lost by many children and schools are scrambling to do better. Unfortunately, too many are seizing on simplistic solutions, that might be helpful for some kids, but which will not be likely to improve achievement very much. The solutions provided in this blog are still the best way to go for those who are serious about raising reading achievement -- in their classroom, in their ...

Teacher question:  How much does reading speed matter?  And if it is important, what is the best way to develop it in our learners? I’ve heard that 100 wpm is the minimal speed for comprehension. Is that a real thing? I believe the average speed is 200 wpm.  Shanahan responds: I can find no minimal reading or listening speed for comprehension in any of the studies I can lay my hands on. I’m sure there must be a minimal reading speed, but it is certainly considerably slower than 100 wpm. Part of the problem, of course, is that everyone interested in reading rate wants to speed readers up rather than slowing them ...

Happy holidays to all Whether you celebrate Thanksgiving, Chanukah, December Solstice, Christmas, Boxing Day, Kwanzaa, St. Stephen’s Day, New Year’s or any of the myriad of other joyous occasions that mark this time of the calendar, I wish you joy and bounty This will be my last entry of 2018. Stay tuned. I have lots of new content planned for 2019. I hope you will continue to read my blogs and to use the free publications, videos, resources, and other material at Shanahan on Literacy. Be sure to subscribe so that you never miss an entry, and please consider signing up your entire school, department, or district for a subscription (let ...

Teacher question: I hope and pray that you write about or repost regarding state reading assessments. I just received a call from a frantic academic coach stating that her principal has told her teachers to look at our state test’s achievement level descriptors and create test-based questions aligned to those levels to ask when immersing students in literature and informational texts. Is this a good use of their time? Isn’t it really all about the text as wells as students’ knowledge of the subject matter, vocabulary, and sentence complexity? Please help! Shanahan response: You’re right. It’s been awhile since I’ve gotten up on this particular soapbox.  Many consider this “the season to ...

Teacher question: I saw you speak recently and you mentioned a few times that schools of high needs should receive more reading instruction compared to schools of low needs. Were you basing your comments on research or your opinion?  Our buildings of high needs students receive fewer instructional reading minutes due to everyone wanting to get a piece of the student for their services (e.g., math needs, reading needs, social skills, specialty school curriculum).  Shanahan response: There are no studies that reveal the amount of reading instruction that is necessary or sufficient to teach reading effectively to students at different levels of performance. However, there is an extensive body of literature showing ...

Blast from the Past: This blog first posted November 16, 2018 and was re-posted on November 20, 2021. Since this blog first posted, English Learners continue to lag, and schools continue to try to provide pull-out and push-in interventions for them. I thought it was time to revisit the issue. There was no need to revise the phonics comments here as research still shows that ELs can benefit from extra decoding instruction, but it also continues to find that such instruction does not have as big a learning impact as it does on English speakers. There is clearly a need (and ...