Literacy Blogs

Teacher question: Can you explain the difference between central idea, main idea, and theme? There appears to be a lot of confusions with these terms.   Shanahan’s response: You’re correct. There is much confusion and disparity in use of the terms central idea, main idea, and theme. And please add topic and topic sentence to that list, too. Part of the problem here is that these are all colloquial terms. They didn’t arise from the sciences (e.g., psychology, linguistics), so, perhaps, we shouldn’t expect too precise a meaning for each. Back in the early 1980s, Jim Baumann conducted a series of studies on the “main idea” concept and the steps needed to teach students to identify main ideas. He found that professional books ...

I talk a lot about research in this space. I argue for research-based instruction and policy. I point out a dearth of empirical evidence behind some instructional schemes, and champion others that have been validated or verified to my satisfaction. Some readers are happy to find out what is “known,” and others see me as a killjoy because the research findings don’t match well with what they claim to “know.” Members of this latter group are often horrified by my conclusions. They often are certain that I’m wrong because they read a book for teachers that had lots of impressive citations that seem contradict my claims.   What is clear from ...

Teacher questions: I am an elementary literacy coach. A trend I am seeing in our K-2 classrooms are center activities not aligned to measurable outcomes. My question is, in a room of 24 first graders, when the teacher is pulling a small group to deliver targeted instruction, what does research say is best for what the other students to be doing? I'm struggling to find a model that we can confidently start driving towards.   I am often asked about what the "other students" should be doing while teachers meet with small groups. I refer to What Works Clearinghouse studies to see gains for different programs and approaches. I can't find ...

Teacher question: Do we read digitally as well as we read paper texts?  Shanahan response: I’ve been asked this provocative question three times in three weeks. Once I was presenting a workshop on how to teach college-bound high-schoolers to handle complex text on tests like the ACT. This group wanted to know if it mattered whether students were tested digitally or with paper (studies estimate significant differences in performance favoring paper).  Last week, I was on a panel at Reading is Fundamental’s National Reading Coalition, a meeting of literacy providers, policymakers, and business leaders. This time the question was posed by Kathleen Ryan-Mufson, Director of Global Citizenship for Pitney-Bowes, a major player ...

Teacher question: I read about the "research base" for guided reading, and Fountas & Pinnell’s exposition of this research mostly contains only position papers--no empirical, peer-reviewed research. I realize that many of the guided reading strategies can be found in research that predates F & P, but what about the effectiveness of guided reading itself? The reason I’m asking is because “guided reading” is now being promoted for high school. What do you think of guided reading for adolescents? Shanahan's response: As usual, it all depends on how you define things. What do you mean by guided reading? The F & P version of guided reading is certainly the most known ...

Teacher question: I attended one of your recent presentations. You cited the Hart & Risley canard that there is a 30 million-word gap. Aren’t you aware that study has been rejected? There is no word gap. Poverty kids have as much language support as other kids. Shanahan response: Research can get things wrong. That’s why researchers—unlike practitioners and policymakers—are usually so interested in the methods of a study. Study a problem one way, you get one answer. Study it another way, perhaps a different answer emerges. Try to understand why the two studies diverged and youstart to gain a deeper understanding of the problem. That’s ...

Teacher question: Please share your thinking as well as research referencing the occasional use of decodable texts for small group reading instruction in grades K-2.  Shanahan response: This is not a highly researched topic. There have been only a handful of studies into the effectiveness of decodable texts since the term was first used back in the 1980s. And, truth be told, they are kind of mess; with little evident agreement about what decodable text is, what it should be compared with, and what outcomes we should expect to derive from it. Research has less solved the problem—is it helpful to use decodable texts with beginning readers—than demonstrated how complicated even simple ideas ...