Literacy Blogs

Teacher question: I am a literacy coordinator. I was wondering how you would respond to a question I was asked recently by a second grade teacher.  "If an opinion is stated in a research [informative/explanatory] paper, does it change the purpose of the paper?" Thanks in advance for your time and your thoughts. Shanahan response: Thanks (a lot). That’s the kind of question that they teach you about in speaker’s school. You are to describe it as an “interesting question”—while you stall hoping that a snappy answer will come to you.  I must admit I was tempted to duck this one. Not because it ...

It's the time of year, when parents and kids are stocking up on school supplies and teachers are decorating bulletin boards and scrambling through professional development days while poring over their new class lists. For me, it is a good time to say a last word on some disparate issues. Teach Your Baby to Read Awhile back, an entry here focused on the “Teach Your Baby to Read” program. I criticized those programs for fostering a mis-definition of reading as word memorization and said it was not likely to be effective. I pointed out the need for research. That turned out to ...

My last entry focused on disagreements over the nature of academic literacy.  One notion of academic language was that it was any text language (formal book language versus informal oral language). A second conception also separates oral language and text language, but it also sets aside the specialized terminology that belongs to particular disciplines. In that view, words like rhombus and mytosis would be too specialized to deserve much instructional attention. A third conception is that academic vocabulary are the words used to teach and assess, and a fourth is the language that labels the essential content of the various disciplines. Obviously these varied conceptions of academic vocabulary ...

Late last year, it was big news when a translator for the deaf and hard of hearing at Nelson Mandela’s funeral didn’t know sign language. The fella was very entertaining (his “signs” displayed exuberance, but not meaning).   It reminded me of when the Dairy Council tried to translate their, “Got Milk” advertising campaign into Spanish—their translator lacked sufficient knowledge of the languages and the slogan came out, “Are you lactating?” Probably not the best way to sell milk! Language is essential to learning and communication, so it should not be a surprise that “academic language” or “academic vocabulary” is a big ...

Previously, I described how I taught my daughters about print, sight vocabulary, phonological awareness, phonics, and early writing skills, while fostering their interest in being literate—all essential to learning to read. But they still could not read. While I was doing this at home, I was teaching undergrad teacher candidates at the university. My nascent teachers were puzzled: E. could read 25 words, knew her letter sounds, and could print using invented spelling (her best friend was named “KD”, for instance). Why couldn’t she read? They assumed that knowing the letter sounds meant someone could read. They assumed that knowing some words ...

And what about phonics? So far, I have explained the literacy environment, print awareness, and sight word teaching that were part of teaching my daughters to read, but phonics also played an important role. I have explained that my children were remembering words from their language experience stories. My teacher preparation students at the university asked me how many words my daughters would need to know before they could read; a very interesting question. In fact, there is no set number. Memorizing some words is always part of beginning reading, but reading is more than memorizing words. Phonics both reduces students’ reliance on ...

Last week, I began a multi-part series on how I taught my daughters to read. My oldest daughter wryly replied to that entry, suggesting I could have saved a lot of pixels if I had just said that I hired a tutor…. And her son who just had his third birthday (and who did not read that entry) informed me that his goal for being 3-years-old was to read words. In that first entry, I described the literacy context in which my daughters grew up. Now, let’s turn to the more formal side of the teaching. When the girls were 2-3 years ...

Blast from the Past: This blog entry was first issued on June 30, 2014 and was reissued on March 28, 2020. As I re-introduce this piece, we are sheltering in place as is so much of the world. That means schools are closed in many places and teachers and parents are concerned about what is being lost from children's education. As with many of you, I've been trying to help protect children's learning during these fraught times. Which brings us to today's blog entry, this one about how I taught my own children to read at home. This blog was ...

I’m pro rigor. And I believe my bona fides are in order on that one. I’ve argued for teaching children to read very early for more than 40 years; even teaching my own kids to read before they entered school (and, yes, I’m working on the grandchildren already; their ages range from 5 months to 3-years-old). The time to teach young kids to read is when you become responsible for the child and not a moment earlier.                                                                             I’m not a big fan of some of programs like “Teach Your Baby to Read,” but only because I don’t think ...

Teacher question: Could you comment on first grade small group reading instruction, specifically round robin, "whisper" reading, echo reading, choral reading, etc.? You have mentioned partner reading and echo reading. Is there research to clearly favor one over another? My practice is to use a variety, although not round robin with the whole class, but my principal is pushing student driven discussion, partner reading, with the goal of student engagement. What does the research say? Shanahan response: Beginning readers cannot read silently. They need to read aloud to be able to figure out the words and to understand the author’s message; so round ...