There were two huge developments in the literacy world early this year. First, the emergence of a phonics program that could impact outcomes “dramatically.” Gains for 1st graders from the foundational skills curriculum created by researchers at the University of Florida Literacy Institute were found to be equivalent to an extra year and a half of instruction. If widely and well implemented, UFLI Foundations and programs like it could be game-changers.
The second development is bleak. We’ve recently learned that reading levels have plunged to historically low levels: 40 percent of our students scored at the “below basic” level in reading on the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress, and the gap between low and high readers is wider than ever. This should scare the hell out of educators. Poor readers are more likely to drop out of high school and endure a cascade of negative life consequences.
These developments should wake us up to a gargantuan opportunity. They will certainly test our resolve: Is the ability to read, write, and speak effectively truly a K-12 priority?
Because we’ve known how to ensure record levels of literacy for some time now. We know, for instance, that students who read ample amounts of grade-level, knowledge-rich text will—inexorably—develop powerful vocabularies and become fluent, competent readers. We already know how to increase reading time and reading stamina. Common sense protocols are available to any teacher who wants to expand daily reading volume (and writing and discussion) threefold or more. One key practice is acquainting students with vocabulary they will need before reading begins. Another is directing students to read and reading to them in manageable and increasingly longer increments, punctuated by peer interaction and writing. These practices will never fail us.
We’ve also learned that some of the most pervasive literacy practices are counterproductive. We know that teaching multiple ability-based groups while most students work at unsupervised “centers” is likely ineffective. We know that an excessive reliance on worksheets, group work, skills instruction, and screen time supplant core literacy activities—the purposeful reading, writing, and discussion that should pervade the disciplines but don’t. We know that off-grade learning materials waste hundreds of hours of school time every year.
Our two-hour literacy blocks represent an especially ripe opportunity for improvement: The dominance of the small-group model greatly reduces time with the teacher. One-hundred and twenty minutes divided by four to five groups (with transitions) means students only receive 20 to 30 minutes of actual instruction. And the literacy centers—on which this model often depends—continue to be rife with the kinds of cut, color, and paste activities that I’ve observed for decades.
There’s nothing new or exotic in these do’s and don’ts of highly effective literacy instruction. Students thrive where they are given their due.
We’ve known how to ensure record levels of literacy for some time now.
But decades on, we have yet to get our literacy house in order. Our priorities lie elsewhere—with confusing, overloaded literacy standards, with ill-conceived programs, or with wholly unproven, often tech-based innovations that seduce us with their newness. Once-trusted literacy organizations are now telling us to “decenter” book reading and essay writing. After all, we’re now in the age of “digital literacy.”
These infatuations only divert us from the less sexy but guaranteed necessities of literacy acquisition. As Doug Lemov tells us, “Low tech, high text. … Read and read and read. Write and write and write.” I would add: Have students discuss and discuss and discuss what they read and write about. That’s how schools like View Park Prep in California, Brockton High School in Massachusetts, La Cima Middle School in Arizona, and others were able to achieve dramatic increases in student literacy in as little as a school year.
Lives are at stake. We can continue to dither while students and teachers wait. Or we can use these two developments as a launching pad for profound improvements in authentic literacy.
How can we seize this moment and turn it to good? For one thing, our practice-oriented education books and journals can more prominently feature frank critiques of common but ineffective practices and routines. For another, they can encourage submissions on how successful schools benefit from practices like the above—accompanied by evidence of measurable student outcomes.
To stay on track, educators should examine every aspect of literacy instruction in the bright light of evidence—and jettison the least effective practices. Moreover, every faculty, district office, and school board meeting should include concrete discussions and celebrations of how best practices are being monitored, adjusted, and improved by teacher teams. This means scrutinizing standardized test scores but more importantly (in my view), local, short-term, written assessments—for single literacy lessons and units.
Why haven’t we done this yet? Perhaps grade inflation has sapped the urgency needed to make fundamental improvements to literacy practice—to classroom practice overall. We would do well to remind ourselves, too, that in the areas of both curriculum and instruction, most schools have yet to implement many practices with the greatest scientific backing.
If we act boldly in response to these developments, outcomes will improve apace, perhaps spectacularly. And that 40 percent of below basic readers will shrink precipitously.
