Literacy | Discovery Education

Back-to-School Breakthroughs with DreamBox Reading

Wed, 28 May 2025 20:53:46 +0000

Back-to-school season is a chance to reset, refocus, and reinvest in what works best for students. And this year, there’s a powerful new enhancement to DreamBox Reading aimed at helping every student become a confident, capable reader.

This back-to-school year, DreamBox Reading, a personalized literacy program that dynamically adapts to every student’s needs within and between lessons, is expanding its support all the way through fifth grade. DreamBox Reading’s enhanced capabilities are focused squarely on helping educators accelerate foundational reading skills through engaging, personalized instruction rooted in the Science of Reading.

Making a Difference in Literacy

We don’t need more statistics to know that too many students struggle with reading and that strong foundational skills are critical for academic and lifelong success. But we do need better resources to address shortfalls—especially as the demands on classroom time keep growing, learning gaps persist, and the needs of students become more varied.

That’s where DreamBox Reading steps in. The new enhancements for Back-to-School 2025 are built specifically to meet this moment: filling gaps, engaging learners who’ve started to fall behind, and saving educators time.

What's Coming to DreamBox Reading for Back to School

Expanded Coverage for Elementary Schools

DreamBox Reading now supports students from PreK through grade 5, with new lessons specifically for upper elementary learners. These lessons focus on foundational skills like phonological awareness, phonics, decoding, guided reading, word recognition, vocabulary, fluency and spelling—skills that many students in grades 3-5 still need help mastering. With ready-to-learn, developmentally appropriate lessons all in one platform, DreamBox Reading gives teachers an additional way to support students without adding more to their plates.

A New, Engaging Experience Built for Older Learners

Students in grades 3-5 need a different learning experience than those in younger grades. DreamBox Reading introduces a redesigned interface tailored to this age group, striking a balance between playfulness and purpose. The new environment motivates students to participate without feeling like the program is “too young” for them.

By designing the experience to align to their needs, interests, and age, students are more likely to stick with it. That sustained engagement leads to more practice, deeper skill development, and a stronger connection to reading—exactly what educators need to see, especially for learners working to catch up.

Smarter, More Personalized Instruction

The heart of DreamBox Reading is its intelligent adaptivity, built upon the same award-winning technology as DreamBox Math. DreamBox Reading continuously adapts to student input—not just right or wrong answers, but how they interact with the lessons. The curriculum personalizes instruction in real time, offering timely scaffolds, feedback, and supports when students need them most. Whether a student is breezing through vocabulary practice or struggling to decode new words, the program responds with the right level of guidance.

This means educators don’t have to spend hours creating differentiated plans for each student—DreamBox Reading does it in real-time, continuously adapting to where the student is and what they’re ready for next. Teachers get a clear picture of student progress, including insights they can use for whole-class instruction, small groups, or one-on-one support. And for students, the result is instruction that feels intuitive, manageable, and empowering.

Final Thoughts: Ready for a New Year of Reading Success

Educators have never been clearer about what they need: tools that are grounded in research, easy to implement, and built to truly support student learning. DreamBox Reading’s back-to-school updates check all these boxes—and then some. Whether you’re trying to close learning gaps, fortify literacy skills, or simply reach every student more effectively, this is one upgrade that’s worth exploring.

As you prepare for a new school year, know that you’re not alone in tackling the challenges of literacy. With the right resources, the path to proficiency can be a little smoother—for both students and teachers.

See what else Discovery Education has in store for Back-to-School 2025!

Explore DreamBox Reading and How it Supports Every K-5 Learner

DreamBox Reading

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The Five Components of Reading

Mon, 07 Apr 2025 19:34:25 +0000

Background: Who determined the five components of reading?

Congress asked the National Reading Panel NRP to determine the best approaches to help children read. As a result of their research and evaluation, the organization issued an evidence-based, nearly 500-page report of their findings. Teaching Children to Read divided reading instruction into five components and summarized available research. NRP then made instructional recommendations for each component.

The components are:

Phonemic awareness
Phonics
Fluency
Comprehension
Vocabulary

Within these five categories, the report determined several key takeaways, including:

Phonemic awareness and phonics:

These early components are critical to reading proficiency, but not the end goal.
These components should be systematically taught and integrated with spelling instruction.
Educators intentionally decide the order that phonemic awareness and phonics skills should be taught.

Fluency, comprehension and vocabulary:

Strong fluency – created by automaticity and language comprehension and a solid vocabulary – is necessary to become a proficient reader.
Students unable to recognize and understand words, can’t achieve fluency and decode unfamiliar words.
Fluency allows for better text comprehension, which allows students to build vocabularies for greater comprehension of more complex texts.

The report also determined that most students need substantial instruction in phonics-based skills to achieve fluency, strengthen comprehension and develop their vocabulary.

Reading Scores Decline for the First Time in Two Decades

In 2022, the National Center for Education Statistics conducted a special administration of the NAEP long-term trend reading and mathematics assessments to examine student achievement during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Scores from over 7,000 9-year-old students indicated:

Average scores in 2022 declined 5 points in reading since 2020.
This decline is the largest average score decline in reading since 1990.
Students in the most underserved populations saw the most dramatic shift. Reading scores dropped 10 points for students in the bottom 10th achievement percentile.

These scores are alarming and it’s urgent to respond strategically and quickly. If these students don’t get access to the right resources and support, they’ll be at greater risk of not building reading proficiency well enough to excel in other areas. Now is the time to provide effective intervention strategies to help students find success this year and beyond to graduate on time, pursue post-secondary opportunities and compete in a global economy.

Strategies to Consider for Literacy Instruction Across Teaching Reading

The NAEP test results analyzed over 7,000 9-year-old 4th grade students. This is a critical period for readers because starting in grade 3, students transition from learning to read, to reading to learn. As children read to learn, DreamBox Reading helps develop the components of reading. They include reading comprehension, vocabulary and fluency – a component often not addressed in the silent reading phase.

Below you’ll find a brief description of each component as well as some easily incorporated strategies to support improved reading outcomes.

Reading Comprehension

Simply put, comprehension means making meaning from text. However, getting to comprehension can be complex and requires three processing systems:

Phonological: Recognizing familiar words or being able to decode unfamiliar words.
Meaning: Understanding the meaning of each word.
Context: Understanding the meaning of sentences and entire texts.

One simple strategy to support students’ reading comprehension is to incorporate read-aloud instruction. Use turn-and-talk, open-ended questions, small-group discussions and student-student discourse to ensure 100% student engagement.

Another strategy, or resource, to support the development of comprehension skills is an online literacy program like DreamBox Reading. Adaptive technology can offer personalized scaffolding to build independent reading skills. The DreamBox Reading program automatically customizes lesson features including content level (based on an initial assessment), reading rate, opportunities to reread texts and questions interspersed throughout each lesson. The program also allows students to self-select reading texts that are engaging and further build content knowledge and vocabulary.

Vocabulary

Vocabulary is the knowledge of what a word means and how to pronounce it. Students develop vocabulary by sounding out words. Making sense of the word then informs comprehension. Readers must understand the meaning of words in order to understand the full content of the text.

Read-alouds, a great strategy for improving reading comprehension, can also help build students’ vocabulary. A 2019 research study found that young children whose parents read aloud to them five books a day enter kindergarten having heard about 1.4 million more words than kids who were never read to.

In addition to vocabulary acquisition that can be formally taught before and during a read-aloud, a combination of turn-and-talks, small-group discussions, and student-student discourse can further grow students’ vocabulary.

Additionally, an adaptive reading program with built-in vocabulary support can supplement whole- and small-group instruction. It provides personalized vocabulary development and improvised reading comprehension. For example, the vocabulary component in DreamBox Reading teaches students a research-based compilation of highly valuable, cross-curriculum, general academic vocabulary. Students master words through activities such as matching a vocabulary word with its synonym, selecting sentences where it’s used properly, and completing sentences with members of its word family.

DreamBox Reading also teaches students “2,400 Words to Master” a research-based compilation of general academic vocabulary. Their word mastery is continually evaluated, and students receive support for academic words they struggle with. These words are systematically included and repeated within their reading selections to help them progressively increase complexity of texts.

Developing Reading Fluency

There are two types of reading fluency:

Oral Reading Fluency: In grades K – 2, students build foundational skills, such as phonemic awareness and phonics skills. During this phase, they also develop oral fluency. Students demonstrate speed, accuracy and expression as they read aloud. It’s immediately apparent when a student doesn’t read a word or sentence correctly. A teacher can then intervene appropriately and quickly.
Silent Reading Fluency: Silent reading fluency becomes increasingly important beginning in 3rd grade. It’s the ability to read silently with attention and concentration, ease and comfort, at grade-appropriate reading rates and with good understanding.

Silent reading fluency is taught the least yet tested the most. The challenge for teachers is how to teach silent reading fluency. Both nonproficient and proficient readers can struggle with low reading fluency, which affects motivation and engagement. Fluent readers are able to focus on comprehension, read increasingly complex texts, and become a more confident and engaged reader.

Reading solutions with embedded assessments can help identify students’ strengths and weaknesses and what they need from the start. This data allows for targeted instruction and can inform areas of fluency, comprehension, vocabulary, confidence and interest. With greater access to student data, educators have insight into where students are and what they need to grow.

Students cannot develop comprehension without vocabulary or fluency skills. However, many intervention programs fail to address silent reading fluency. So, students are limited in the progress they can make across other critical skills. DreamBox Reading is the only reading solution that supports silent reading fluency. Educators can leverage the Intelligent Adaptive Learning technology to guide and support reading fluency and provide each student with just-right instruction. Reading fluency allows students to focus more deeply on comprehension, read increasingly complex texts and become a more confident and engaged reader.

As students develop and hone the skills necessary to become readers, they must engage with the right content to become better readers. Technology can match students with the right lessons for their vocabulary, comprehension and fluency levels. It can adapt and adjust to ensure they remain within their zone of proximal development. As they build intersectional skills in every area, just-in-time technology, like DreamBox Reading 3 – 12, can provide personalized scaffolds and support based on student behavior and needs.

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Strengthening Student Literacy Skills

Mon, 07 Apr 2025 19:26:23 +0000

Whether you’re a teacher, administrator, student, or community member, you’ve probably heard lots of conversation surrounding reading over the last school year. Particularly discussions about literacy instruction and student reading proficiency, both critical to the success of students’ academic careers. One teacher, Judith Philias, shared her insights with the Discovery Education team about why she loves teaching English Language Arts, how DE has helped her literacy instruction, and some advice for teachers who are looking to help their students grow as readers and writers—all while keeping learning fun!

I have been teaching in Miami, Florida for 16 years and I currently teach third grade. I became a teacher because I get to make a lasting impression and challenge my students. The title “teacher” brings many roles, including (but not limited to) counseling, developing differentiated instruction that can meet the needs of various learners, being a role model, and even advocating for what’s best for your students. I love teaching English Language Arts (ELA) because reading is an essential skill to life, and having great foundational reading skills can help set up students for successful futures. In third grade, ELA is an extremely critical subject area for students, as the state reading test is a determining factor for promotion to fourth grade.

This year I have noticed that my students have been struggling to identify key details in a passage and with comprehension questions regarding the text. Discovery Education has supported my literacy instruction by helping me reach my students in a variety of methods. DE offers instructional videos for teachers that model how to implement new strategies, interesting reading passages to help students practice their reading skills, and other engaging resources for student use.

My students love Discovery Education! When I incorporated DE resources within the lesson, it made my students’ day because it was something fun and different. For them, it was beyond a textbook, because the information was presented in a way that kept it from feeling boring or repetitive.

An SOS Strategy (DE’s popular instructional strategies developed by teachers) that I use that always receives great feedback is Three Truths, One Lie. After reading a story, I organize the students in small groups to create their responses: three true details and one false detail. As the students work together, it is actually easier for them to identify details from the story than to write the lie! When they are finished, each group presents their sentences, and the other groups have to determine which sentence is a lie. It makes a fun lesson using a skill my students usually struggle with, and it serves as a quick assessment for me to see how my class is progressing in identifying key details in a text.

"One SOS Strategy that I would recommend to teachers is XO Let’s Go for students. It is the classic tic-tac-toe game but with an academic twist! Playing games helps keep my students excited and engaged in learning."

Judith Philias

My advice to other teachers who are using Discovery Education is to familiarize yourself with the platform, because it will help you explore everything it has to offer. The site has so much information, and for some individuals it can become overwhelming. Familiarizing yourself with the homepage and search feature is a great way to start! After you learn to navigate the website (as best as you can), choose one SOS Strategy, watch the instructional video, read the teacher’s guide, and lastly, apply the strategy in your classroom. Another great feature is that some strategies include their own graphic organizer!

Judith Philias

Judith Philias is an Elementary ELA Teacher located in Miami, Florida. She has been teaching for 16 years, and is a member of the Discovery Educator Network as a DEN STAR. Judith currently serves as her school's Third Grade department chair, one of the Future Educators of America (FEA) club sponsor, and Dance Team club sponsor. She is passionate about differentiated instruction and challenging her students in new ways!

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11 Key Takeaways from a Conversation with a State Superintendent

Sat, 05 Apr 2025 19:36:42 +0000

During our recent webinar, The Mississippi Miracle: Key Strategies for Improving Reading Achievement, Dr. Carey M. Wright, former State Superintendent of Education in Mississippi, shared her insights and experiences leading efforts to significantly improve reading outcomes across the state.

Just before Dr. Wright came to Mississippi, the state legislature passed the Literacy-Based Promotion Act (LBPA), which placed an emphasis on students meeting grade-level benchmarks by third grade. Dr. Wright was tasked with overseeing this legislation. Over the course of her tenure as state superintendent, Mississippi went from having some of the nation’s lowest reading scores to being spotlighted as the state with the highest reading gains according to data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

Here are some highlights from this engaging and inspiring discussion with Dr. Wright.

1. All reading pedagogy and resources must be based on evidence and proven by research to effectively promote literacy development.

One of the guiding principles of Dr. Wright’s work was ensuring effective and proven resources were in place. She shared, “Children’s lives are too valuable to use things that don’t work.” Dr. Wright described that one of her first actions as state superintendent was to create a team of experts in effective reading instruction who relied on scientific research to oversee these efforts. The team recognized the need to implement the research-proven Science of Reading approach across the state to transform reading outcomes.

When asked about the approach to eliminating practices or resources that are not research-based, Dr. Wright explained that she and her team regularly posed the question, “Are you demonstrating positive student outcomes? If the answer to that is yes, and there is a research base to support that, then that’s something you need to look at. If the answer is no or the results are mixed, you need to look for something else.”

2. Educational leaders should act with urgency and intention.

At one point during the conversation, the engaged audience asked, what would you have done differently? Dr. Wright remarked, “I sure wouldn’t have gone slower… My sense of urgency has never wavered, and that is what I tried to lead with.” Dr. Wright emphasized that, “You’ve got to go in every single day like it’s the only day you’ve got because the little ones are depending on you as the professionals that are standing in front of them and parents are depending on you…When the day is over, you can’t go back and grab that day.” Each day matters and Wright shared that she and her team focused energy on creating systems to ensure that every student was getting what they needed to maximize the impact of instructional time and move their literacy growth forward.

3. Building the capacity of educators with high-quality, ongoing professional learning sets the foundation for success.

All leaders know that teachers are an instrumental piece to transforming reading outcomes. And Dr. Wright emphasized that point, “Teachers and leaders come in every day wanting to do the best that they can” but many did not have the background on research-based practices to effectively teach reading to all students. Because of this, professional learning was at the core of her team’s plan. She explained the approach to teacher and administrator training “was not a finger-pointing exercise” about what had not been done in the past. Instead, her team framed the strategy around how they could best build teacher capacity.

Mississippi teachers needed to be educated about the Science of Reading so they could understand the why and the how. This includes the five major components of learning to read and how to teach them in concert with one another, rather than independently. This approach worked and the improvement in outcomes followed. Dr. Wright shared, “We are proof positive. We’ve trained all of these teachers and trained all of these administrators. People are feeling so much more confident about their teaching ability.” Beyond the initial professional development, Dr. Wright’s team continuously asked administrators and educators how else they could support them to refine their approach and support educators.

4. Empowering educators with information, materials, and guidance more deeply embeds evidence-based practices across schools and districts.

Dr. Wright shared that beyond simply teaching educators about the Science of Reading, it was necessary to equip them with an understanding and guidance on how to evaluate practices and materials to ensure alignment and success. She explained, “We wanted them to have not only the grounding of that work, but [to also understand] here’s what you can do with it.” To that end, Dr. Wright’s team created rubrics to evaluate instructional materials, resources, and curated lists of vetted high-quality curricula. She described that, as a leader in the state, “We were there to be in service to our districts, our teachers, our leaders, and our families. We asked, what do you need? and began creating what they needed to do their job even better.”

5. Sharing data is a powerful way to show what is working and build momentum.

During the conversation, Dr. Wright acknowledged that this effort to improve reading outcomes requires hard work, time, and buy-in from a cross-section of stakeholders. She explained that sharing data to show tangible measures that these efforts were yielding significant, positive results was crucial in building momentum and a continued investment in these literacy efforts. She noted that “proving that what we were doing was working–that speaks volumes.” The data “solidified a belief system” in the overall initiative. She also reflected that having this data be public and widely celebrated has made long-term state investment in literacy success much more likely: “The state has seen such great gains; I think they might be hesitant to not want to fund something that has been so successful.”

6. A commitment to prevention and intervention keeps the focus on improving student learning.

During the Q&A session of this event, an audience member asked about ways to support students who were reading below grade level. Dr. Wright responded, “Intervening early is critical. You’ve got to be able to meet individual needs. That’s the critical part–using your data to identify the kids that need the extra help.” Dr. Wright spoke of the heightened importance of intervention for students who are not meeting grade-level benchmarks by third grade–regardless of whether they are retained or promoted. She shared, “Children that are retained don’t need another year of the same thing. They need a more solid, intensive reading intervention and a solid 90-minutes of instruction and intervention.” And, children who are promoted to fourth grade, but not reading at grade level, also need additional instruction and support. To that end, Wright and her team provided supports for teachers of struggling third and fourth grade readers that included specialized professional development on how to provide the instruction and intervention that these students need.

7. Families, parents, and caregivers add tremendous value to literacy growth.

“Parents are critical in this whole endeavor,” Dr. Wright pointed out. She described that it is important to “invite parents in in a meaningful way…more than at a back-to-school night or parent conference night. It’s involving them as volunteers, it’s working with small groups, it’s having them serve on your leadership team. I think it’s important that they see themselves as a value add.” Wright and her team created information to engage parents including family success guides in multiple languages, an informational website, and resources to support schools engaging with families around literacy. She also noted that families can be great advocates for reaching out to decision-makers such as legislators–who listen to their constituents in prioritizing decisions and initiatives.

8. High-quality early learning dramatically improves the likelihood students will read on grade level by third grade.

As a true believer in the power of high-quality early learning opportunities, Dr. Wright explained, “Early childhood…is so critical, especially in states like Mississippi, which has the highest poverty rate in the nation, with spots that have very little access to high-quality learning.” With funding from the state’s Early Learning Collaborative Act, Dr. Wright was able to expand access to early learning in areas of the state that had the lowest scores on statewide assessments and had the fewest opportunities for high-quality early education. And by simply adding a question to kindergarten registration throughout the state, Dr. Wright and her team were able to see that those students attending the state collaborative programs were significantly outperforming their counterparts on literacy outcomes. With this success, she continued to find ways to “keep expanding those programs because we knew how well they were functioning” and was able to make the case to the state legislature to provide additional funds.

9. Community and legislative buy-in can catalyze transformational change at scale.

Dr. Wright credited support from the state legislature and the LBPA legislation with sparking the state-wide focus on literacy growth and creating the context that allowed for this remarkable progress. Throughout her time as state superintendent, she continued to partner with state legislators to generate funding and public support for the initiative. She shared that “Establishing relationships with legislators and elected officials to really believe that the department could lead this work went a long way in us being able to garner additional funds for what we were trying to do.”

10. Lean into instructional materials with a proven track record of research and efficacy.

There are hundreds of ed tech solutions in the market right now, but few organizations can demonstrate their products are research-driven and have data to prove they are moving the needle on student learning. Dr. Wright urged leaders to look to organizations committed to showing real data, not simply anecdotal results. When an organization leads with research, she shared, “It’s a telling piece that the leader that runs the organization has children in her heart and the power of what they are trying to get done with their product speaks volumes.”

11. It is essential to keep a laser focus on student learning and outcomes.

In reflecting on the lessons learned throughout this literacy transformation in Mississippi, Dr. Wright noted that all decisions, strategies, and plans should come back to the singular question of “Are children learning?” She emphasized that this central tenet “is the key–and you’ve got to keep that first and foremost in your mind at all times.” Wright went on to explain that if the answer to this question is no, educators must ask “Why not? And what else can we be doing that we’re not doing? If they’re not learning, how are we, as adults, changing what we’re doing to ensure that children are learning?” This unrelenting commitment to improving reading outcomes is inspiring educators and legislators around the country to implement an evidence-based and research-proven approach to accelerate reading growth for their students.

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Supporting Science of Reading in Your District

Sat, 05 Apr 2025 19:34:23 +0000

The Situation

Approximately one-third of U.S. 4th and 8th graders demonstrate proficiency in reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The persistence of this crisis – and it is a crisis when 1 in 3 students are not reading at grade level – is tragic not only for the implications of how this deficit will impact the future of these children (higher dropout rates, lower lifetime wages) but also for the fact that there are effective, proven methods to improve reading outcomes for all learners.

These alarming scores do not reflect the level of educators’ dedication to teaching, nor do they reflect students’ motivation to learn, but rather, these scores signal a need to standardize our approaches to literacy to better align with research-based practices.

Many states have enacted legislation to explicitly transform reading within their state by prioritizing well-researched, proven methods for instruction and bringing consistency across schools and districts. As a result, educators have turned to practices supported by decades of research and data. The new approach requires that districts implement Science of Reading-aligned practices in their classrooms.

What is Science of Reading?

The Science of Reading (SoR) is the body of evidence of approaches to reading instruction. An abundance of that research suggests that a structured literacy approach is the most effective way to teach reading.

Phonological Awareness

The ability to recognize and manipulate the parts of sentences and words said aloud. For example, a student who has acquired phonological awareness can identify words that rhyme or count the number of syllables in a word.

Alphabetic Principle

The ability to associate the letter names and their distinct sounds to the uppercase and lowercase letters.

Phonemic Awareness

The ability to recognize the smallest unit of sound in a word “phonemes.” For example, understanding that cat is made up of three distinct sounds /k/ /a/ /t/.

Phonics

The ability to match the sounds of words (phonemes) with the letter or letters they represent (graphemes). For example, knowing that the sound for /k/ can be represented as c (cat), k (kite), ck (duck), or ch (school).

Fluency

The ability to read smoothly, without interruption or pausing, results from students reading and rereading texts early in the developmental process. Fluency is an explicit goal achieved by persistent, repeated, engagement with text.

Vocabulary

Knowing what words mean and how to say and use them properly.

Text Comprehension

The ability to understand what the text means. This may be determining the author’s intent, the responses it evokes in the reader, and how the text relates to the broader body of knowledge in the world.

The Challenges of Transforming Literacy Instruction for District Leaders

Aligning reading instruction with research and best practices proven to be effective means that all students will have access to the tools, instructional materials, and pedagogy to become proficient readers. These students will be able to engage deeply with academic content in the years ahead, paving the way for them to become adults who can actively participate in and contribute to the world around them–elevating the long-term overall success of the district and the broader community.

How District Leaders Can make the Shift in Instruction Successful

Ensuring that teachers employ the proven practices of Science of Reading, and helping teachers transition to these practices, is critically important if students are to be successful readers. District and school leaders can catalyze a successful implementation of Science of Reading principles by providing educators with a shared purpose, meaningful professional learning, ample time, effective resources, and a commitment to ongoing support.

Build a common understanding and expectations: When entire districts are adopting a new instructional approach, it is critical that all stakeholders have a shared understanding, language, and set of expectations. Before implementation, it is vital for district leaders to share information about the research basis, steps for rollout, and desired outcomes with educators so they understand the reasons for the change and are, therefore, more likely to embrace the approach.

Provide the right tools: As an initial step in implementation, districts should audit current tools and resources and identify those that utilize SoR principles. Districts should then assess what additional tools and resources are needed for teaching and learning to successfully implement SoR for students. It is important that districts pair adoption of these new tools with meaningful professional learning for educators.

Prioritize professional development: A shift to implementing Science of Reading practices may mean restructuring the entire approach to literacy. This requires that district and school leaders invest time, resources, and energy to ensure that classroom teachers and interventionists understand pedagogical practices and how to implement them for their specific students. Further, many teachers have been trained in and utilized balanced literacy for their entire careers. Professional learning needs to include explicit descriptions of how SoR practices are different and which practices are no longer justified by SoR research.

Learn from others: District leaders should regularly connect with colleagues in other districts and their own team to support one another, share lessons learned, and strategize about how to enable successful implementation. Utilize Facebook groups, Twitter chats, webinars, and resources from professional organizations to engage in additional opportunities to learn from others and to inform the broader conversation. It’s also important to acknowledge that classroom teachers are in a similar position. Leaders can facilitate structured opportunities for them to connect with colleagues and peers in professional learning communities.

Engage learning guardians and communities: Reading development is a primary focus of learning in the early grades and, in its ideal form, transcends both the classroom and the home. It’s critical to have clear and consistent messaging throughout the entire district on why educators are shifting to SoR, what that will look like for students, and how families and learning guardians can support students in their literacy development. District leaders can work with their office of communications, family and community outreach teams, and any other relevant professionals to engage families in building understanding and momentum.

Invest in ongoing and systematic efforts: This kind of shift requires changes at every level of a school district and requires time and iterative effort. To truly transform reading instruction, district leaders must provide structures for consistent and ongoing support, guidance, and regular feedback loops to ensure that educators have access to the information and professional learning they need when it is relevant to their instruction and the phase of implementation.

Transforming Literacy for Long-Term Success

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Science of Reading: A Conversation with Education Leaders

Sat, 05 Apr 2025 19:30:18 +0000

Kay Takeaways from a Conversation on Understanding and Implementing New Literacy Practices

In recent decades, researchers have identified key practices proven to effectively teach students to read, known as the science of reading (SoR). A growing achievement crisis in literacy rates has fueled many states throughout the country to enact legislation requiring all students to have access to this evidence-based reading instruction. District administrators and educators are grappling with how to implement the legislation to best serve the needs of their students.

During the webinar, Navigating Science of Reading Legislation & Transforming Literacy Initiatives, Kristin Gehsmann, EdD, the recent Director of The Virginia Tech School of Education, gave historical context on the Science of Reading and discussed critical components for translating this research into practice. Jeffrey James, EdD, the Superintendent of Iredell-Statesville Schools, NC shared his professional experiences leading the transformation of literacy initiatives in a diverse school district with more than 20,000 students. These experts led an engaging discussion that offered attendees new insights as they begin to respond to SoR legislation.

Here are key takeaways from this insightful and dynamic conversation:

1. Learning to read is a complex process. It’s important to respect and acknowledge the complexity as educators design literacy initiatives.

A key point our speakers conveyed from the onset is that learning to read is a dynamic, multi-faceted process. Dr. Gehsmann explained, “Reading is a complex and developmental process that requires expert knowledge and research on how students become readers.” In order to effectively transform literacy practices and outcomes, it’s critical that educational leaders take this complexity into account. Dr. James added, “One size does not fit all […] We have to meet the child where they are.” The process of learning to read must be based on what works and include a personalized approach that can be adapted to fit the unique needs and strengths of each student.

2. It’s critical to implement practices that are based in research and proven with evidence.

In discussing how to ensure that all students learn to read, both experts talked about the vital importance of implementing literacy practices proven to work and address the different components of learning to read. Dr. James explained that he sees it as his duty as an educational leader to “Make sure that the programs we put in place are effective […] when we adopt a program, we want to see the research behind it.” Dr. Gehsmann added that it’s essential that district leaders evaluate programs and research with this critical lens – ensuring that the evidence is significant and valid.

When Dr. James immersed himself in the SoR research, he was excited to find an evidence-based, holistic program that creates a structure to teach reading and takes word recognition, language, and comprehension into account. He clarified that it is critical that there should be guidance on the sequence students should learn. Dr. Gehsmann added that when implementing these research-based methods, it’s vital for educational administrators to “help educators translate the research that exists into practice,” to ultimately bring these practices to scale.

3. When deploying new initiatives, plan proactively, roll out strategically, and allow time for change to occur.

Speaking from over two decades in education, Dr. James emphasized the importance of thoughtful and strategic planning when rolling out new initiatives. He has found using pilots for the initial phases of programs especially beneficial as it allows them to start out small and “get all the bugs out of deployment” before wide-scale implementation. He also shared that his district found it helpful to invite teachers to visit the classrooms of teachers who “are doing extraordinary things and moving the needle forward.” This provides models of best practices and builds relationships among teachers, creating a system of support and collegiality.

Once they began rolling out the Science of Reading across the district, Dr. James and his leadership team took steps to ensure that teachers would not be overwhelmed with adopting several new initiatives or programs simultaneously. They reviewed other initiatives in the district to identify those that could be delayed or reconsidered. Dr. James described the measure of a successful rollout as being truly systemic, which takes intentional efforts and time for change to take hold. He explained, ”When I walk into one building, I’m seeing the same thing that I am in any other building. But it does take three to five years to see that level of embedded practice.”

4. High-quality educators are the lynchpin for student learning and achievement. To successfully transform literacy initiatives, it’s essential to get teacher buy-in.

According to Dr. James, successful implementation “really comes down to effective teaching.” Because of this, efforts to support educators – and build their belief in the value of changes to instructional practice – are fundamental to achieving literacy. Dr. James and Dr. Gehsmann emphasized that an initial, important step to get teacher buy-in is helping teachers understand the research they’re putting into practice. When teachers understand the purpose of new approaches, they’re more likely to implement these practices.

Dr. James shared that when implementing the SoR, he recognized that it would require “a huge lift for teachers.” To support this effort, he and his leadership team designed professional development that offers a sustainable system of support for teachers during the rollout. The leadership team invited teachers to evaluate resources and inform decisions about programs. He also regularly sought feedback from educators in his district on school climate and what they needed to be successful. The district focused on communicating to teachers how much they are valued and appreciated, and he found ways to provide financial incentives for training and scheduled professional development during working hours.

5. Embedding formative assessment is key in implementing literacy initiatives, so educators can catch issues early and intervene.

When implementing these new literacy practices, both Dr. James and Dr. Gehsmann noted the importance of systematically including valid and reliable assessments that can be used to measure learning and guide teaching within the SoR framework. Dr. Gehsmann explained the critical role assessments play in implementation. “You really want to make sure that you have valid and reliable assessments […] that are informing teachers’ instructional decisions.” Dr. Gehsmann added a note of caution: “When we’re looking at assessments, we want to be really careful that we don’t become so hyper-focused on some skills that we miss the importance of students being able to orchestrate all of these skills to read with comprehension.” With varying reading abilities within a classroom, formative assessment is essential to understand where students are, what they need to move forward, and how they are progressing on their goals.

6. High-quality, proven resources that align with Science of Reading are vital for literacy success at scale.

The panel of experts pointed out the importance of having resources and tools in place that are aligned with SoR and proven by research to support reading growth and achievement at scale. Ed-tech solutions that offer adaptive and dynamic assessment, instruction, and practice can provide schools and districts with the support they need to personalize learning for each student at scale. When selecting resources, they noted that districts must evaluate the data and research behind products to ensure they are using their resources on solutions that will significantly impact student learning. Both Gehsmann and James cautioned districts to always question the validity of research and data. James shared he always asks vendors, “What research have you done? How many students were involved in the research? What was the effect size?” This evaluation ensures that districts deploy high-quality, proven resources.

7. Many noninstructional variables impact literacy readiness, growth, and development.

Dr. Gehsmann and Dr. James expanded the conversation around literacy practices to make the critical point that learning to read is influenced by an array of complicated factors and not solely the product of instructional practices in a classroom. From shortages in well-qualified teachers, to inequitable school funding and access to books at home and at school, reading growth and development are often heavily affected by economic disparities. With this context, Dr. Gehsmann explained, “We have to approach the Science of Reading […] and falling levels of reading achievement by looking at a constellation of factors and potential solutions to these challenges.” Dr. James noted that these solutions might include offering free breakfast and lunch and access to early learning programs, along with other mechanisms to increase equity, opportunity, and support. Acknowledging the complexities of literacy development and achievement and responding more holistically will result in better overall outcomes for students.

8. Reading is an essential component for lifelong learning and success.

A common theme throughout the conversation is the belief that teaching students to read is one of the most fundamental and critical purposes of schools – for both individual and collective success. Dr. Gehsmann described this educational mission, saying, “The goal of reading instruction should be efficient and accurate reading that allows readers to derive meaning from what was read. […] That’s the whole point. We want students to be able to read, to gain knowledge, but also to bring enjoyment to their lives.”

Dr. Gehsmann went on to explain insights from cognitive psychologists who have found that “Reading literally changes the brain. […] Reading can advance perspective-taking and empathy.”–skills that are critical for individuals and groups to problem-solve, collaborate, and create vibrant inclusive communities. Successfully learning to read is a primary ingredient for a productive and fulfilling life. Because of this, educational leaders must ensure all students have access to research-proven, high-quality literacy instruction, resources, and practice.

With wide scale implementation of Science of Reading practices, there’s an opportunity for partnerships between districts and higher ed institutions to expand research on reading pedagogy and the process of learning to read. Dr. Gehsmann described her aspirations for what this next phase of Science of Reading can bring: “We're continuously learning … and maybe this is more of a hope, that school districts will start to partner with university faculty to translate the existing research into practice, and even take it further and learn how to scale it up.” This relationship between research and practice would allow for the replication of previous empirical studies as well as the development of new insights into understanding how students progress through the complex process of learning to read, all of which lead to better practices and outcomes for students.

Discover More Literacy Best Practices, Strategies, and Resources

Supporting Literacy for All Learners

The post Science of Reading: A Conversation with Education Leaders appeared first on Discovery Education.

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Science Matters: Literacy Research is the Key to Improving Reading Outcomes

Fri, 04 Apr 2025 19:34:17 +0000

How can we improve reading outcomes for all of our students?

Educators have asked themselves this question countless times. They have tried different strategies, software products, and professional development as potential answers. But with only 35% of U.S. fourth-grade students proficient in reading, where does reading instruction go from here?

Numerous terms, including the science of reading and the 5 components of reading, are at the forefront of discussions in the literacy field right now, yet both terms have appeared often in reading research for decades. What is behind the renewed interest?

The Science of Reading

In 2019, Mississippi was the only state where students showed gains in reading on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP). A key differentiator for why Mississippi, a state where students have historically struggled in reading, showed reading gains is the investment the state has made in its teachers, providing intensive professional development in literacy practices that are firmly based on the science of reading.

The phrase science of reading refers to the large body of research connected to understanding how we learn to read. The science of reading points to those evidence-based approaches and methods that result in successful outcomes for students. For example, there is a renewed interest in the National Reading Panel’s research-based concepts that should be at the core of any reading instruction program. The five concepts are phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. In addition, greater scrutiny has been given to the importance of teaching foundational reading skills with explicit, systematic instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics, a strategy that is clearly aligned with reading research.

The success in Mississippi has not gone unnoticed. Other states are beginning to support and pass legislation that focuses on evidence-based reading instruction aligned with the science of reading and proven to improve reading. Likewise, many literacy program providers are now promoting their offerings under the “science of reading” umbrella. The education world is buzzing constantly about yet another shift in reading instruction, even though for many educators, there is still much to digest and understand, especially how this shift could impact their current literacy instruction.

The Five Components of Reading

The National Reading Panel (NRP) convened in 1998 at the request of Congress to help determine how best to teach children how to read. Two years later, the NRP issued its report titled, “Teaching Children to Read,” which divided reading instruction into five components—phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary. The report summarized the research available at the time for each component and made recommendations for instruction for each.

Some key takeaways from this report include:

Phonemic awareness and phonics are critical to reading proficiency but not the end goal.
The 5 components of reading should be explicitly taught, integrated with spelling instruction, in a systematic way.
Educators need to make intentional decisions about the order that phonemic awareness and phonics skills should be taught.
Strong fluency—created by automaticity and language comprehension and a solid vocabulary—is necessary to become a proficient reader.
Students can’t have fluency without the ability to immediately recognize and understand words, and decode unfamiliar words.
Fluency allows for better text comprehension, which allows us to build our vocabularies, which allows for greater comprehension of more complex texts.

Additionally, the NRP reports that about 5% of students will learn to read with minimal instruction. These learners become readers no matter what kind of reading instruction is provided. Sixty percent of students will learn to read with significant support, and the remaining 35% will require intensive intervention to learn how to read. So, while some students may need only minimal instruction in phonics and phonemic awareness, research shows that most students need substantial instruction in phonics-based skills to gain fluency, strengthen comprehension, and grow vocabulary.

Strategies to Consider for Your Literacy Instruction

As 47 states have shifted to literacy practices firmly based on the science of reading, there are simple strategies that can be put into practice immediately to gently pivot toward what the research has shown to be effective instruction for improving students’ reading outcomes.

Below you will find a brief description of the three components that the Reading Plus program, for students in grades 3-12, addresses as well as some suggested strategies that can be easily incorporated into your current reading instruction to support improved reading outcomes.

Comprehension means making meaning from text, but how to get to comprehension can be more complex and requires three processing systems: phonological (recognize familiar words or be able to decode unfamiliar words; meaning (understand the meaning of each word), and context (understand the meaning of sentences and entire texts).

One simple strategy to support your students’ reading comprehension is to incorporate read alouds into your instruction, using turn and talk, open-ended questions, discussion protocols in small groups, and student-student discourse to ensure 100% student engagement.

Another strategy, or resource, to support the development of comprehension skills is an online literacy program like Reading Plus that offers personalized scaffolding to build independent reading skills. The Reading Plus program automatically customizes lesson features including content level (based on an initial assessment), reading rate, opportunities to reread texts, and questions interspersed throughout each lesson. The program also allows students to self-select reading texts that are engaging and further build content knowledge and vocabulary.

A 2019 research study found that young children whose parents read them five books a day enter kindergarten having heard about 1.4 million more words than kids who were never read to. For those children who were not read to, vocabulary acquisition is essential to improving reading comprehension and raising reading achievement.

Read alouds, a great strategy for improving reading comprehension, can also help build students’ vocabulary. In addition to vocabulary acquisition that can be formally taught before and during a read aloud, a combination of turn and talks, small group discussions, and student-student discourse can further grow students’ vocabulary.

Additionally, an adaptive reading program with built-in vocabulary support can supplement whole and small group instruction, providing a personalized path to vocabulary development and improvised reading comprehension. For example, the vocabulary component in Reading Plus teaches students a research-based compilation of highly valuable, cross-curriculum, general academic vocabulary. Students master words through activities such as matching a vocabulary word with its synonym, selecting sentences where it is used properly, and completing sentences with members of its word family.

Definitions of oral reading fluency, the focus of grades K-2, often include speed, accuracy, and expression. Silent reading fluency, which becomes increasingly important beginning in grade 3, is the ability to read silently with sustained attention and concentration, ease and comfort, at grade-appropriate reading rates and with good understanding.

A few key ideas about fluency, in relation to literacy instruction:

Strong fluency is created by automaticity, language comprehension and a solid vocabulary, and is necessary to become a proficient reader.
Students can’t have fluency without the ability to immediately recognize and understand words, and decode unfamiliar words.
Fluency allows for better text comprehension, which allows us to build our vocabularies, which allows for greater comprehension of more complex texts.

The debate around best literacy practices will continue, possibly shifting toward instruction firmly based in the science of reading or remaining firmly planted in balanced literacy–or somewhere in between. While this debate happens, the above strategies are suggestions for your daily reading instruction that can boost students’ reading comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency, with the goal of improving reading outcomes for all students.

The post Science Matters: Literacy Research is the Key to Improving Reading Outcomes appeared first on Discovery Education.

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Most Tested, Least Taught: Silent Reading Fluency

Fri, 04 Apr 2025 19:34:15 +0000

Starting the Journey: Learn to Read Through Oral Reading Fluency

Before we define silent reading fluency, it may be helpful to understand that before students can approach silent reading fluency, they begin their reading journey with oral reading.

Oral reading is generally the focus of grades K – 2. Students build foundational skills, such as phonemic awareness and phonics skills. During this exciting time, they learn to decode words, put sentences together and make it through their first books. This is often referred to as the learn-to-read phase.

During this phase, it’s easy for teachers to track their students’ speed, accuracy and expression as they read aloud. It’s immediately apparent when a student doesn’t read a word or sentence correctly, and a teacher can intervene appropriately and quickly.

Continuing the Journey: Reading to Learn Through Silent Reading Fluency

Around grade 3, there’s a dramatic shift in the reading journey. Around this time, the expectation is that students will be ready to use reading to learn grade-level content. This is the reading-to-learn phase. Students will continue to hone and sharpen these skills as they move through school and will read and understand increasingly complex texts. This ongoing phase will continue throughout each student’s academic career and beyond. This work is mostly executed through silent reading.

What is silent reading fluency?

Silent reading fluency is the ability to comfortably read silently with concentration, at appropriate reading rates and with clear understanding. This skill bridges the gap between word recognition and comprehension. Silent reading is a combination of three types of skills that actively work in concert as a student reads. It is:

Physical: When students read, their eyes move across each word of a sentence in a specific order and an efficient manner.
Cognitive: Once students have moved their eyes across the text, they identify the vocabulary of each word and string the sentence together to comprehend the meaning.
Emotional: When students finish reading their feelings contribute to the outcomes. If students feel confident about reading and have interest in the content, they are more likely to continue to read.

What does strong reading fluency look like?

Students cannot achieve fluency without the ability to recognize and understand words immediately and decode unfamiliar words. Strong fluency is created by automaticity, language comprehension and a solid vocabulary. It allows for improved text comprehension and empowers readers to build their vocabularies, which enables greater comprehension of more complex texts.

When fluent readers read silently, they:

Recognize words automatically
Group words quickly
Gain meaning from text

Students must continually master all these skills while engaged with reading to become proficient silent readers. However, unlike oral reading fluency, effective silent reading fluency is difficult for teachers to monitor and intervene if students need support. Silent reading fluency is an unseen and unheard skill, and it is undeniably necessary to become a proficient reader.

Silent Reading Fluency is the Skill That is Taught the Least Yet Tested the Most.

Students use silent reading daily – when students take quizzes and benchmark tests, complete assignments, study for an upcoming discussion or simply follow directions in class. They also use the skill during high-stakes exams, such as end-of-year assessments, standardized tests and entrance exams, like the ACTs or SATs. Students use silent reading skills every day, across all areas, and as a result nonproficient reading affects the ability to learn in ALL subject areas.

Data has indicated that silent reading fluency is a common struggle for many students. Seventy percent of nonproficient students are not fluent in silent reading, and 30% of proficient students are not fluent in silent reading.

Why is Silent Reading Fluency Frequently Overlooked?

Teachers are trained to listen to students for struggles during oral reading. However, students who struggle to read silently may not demonstrate easy-to-spot signs.

Early readers have a small visual span; that is to say, they only see a few letters at a time. They also haven’t developed eye movements that naturally move from left to right, knowing where to land on words. When researchers looked at eye-movement recordings of students reading, they noticed that students who read inefficiently make many extra fixations or eye stops. They move very short distances and make regressive eye movements. They’ll move backward to check words or confirm what they saw. The reader invests a lot of time trying to move their eyes to the right place within the text. Reading becomes exhausting and making sense of the content becomes difficult.

Consider this example of a nonfluent 7th grade student:

A nonfluent 7th grade student reads at a pace of about 140 words per minute, at a 2nd-grade level. As this reader attempts to read a 7th grade text, they regress back across the text and the reader must reorder the words before trying to comprehend the content. This extra work leads to low comprehension levels and low motivation.

All of this extra energy is largely invisible to teachers. Without insight into these inefficiencies, teachers may not intervene, and students will continue to struggle in classes for years.

Three Critical Elements to Drive Reading Fluency

Becoming a fluent reader allows a student to focus more deeply on comprehension, read increasingly complex texts and become a more confident and engaged reader. Educators can leverage technology to guide and support this work and provide each student with what they need the moment they need it.

Targeted Instruction: Reading solutions with embedded assessments can help identify each student’s strengths and weaknesses and what they need from the moment they start. This data should inform areas of fluency, comprehension, vocabulary, confidence and interest. With greater access to student data, educators have insight into exactly where a student is and what they need to grow further.
Structured Practice: Students must practice the right lessons to become better readers. Technology can match students with the right content for their fluency levels and adapt and adjust to ensure they remain within their zone of proximal development. As they build skills in every area, just-in-time technology should provide personalized scaffolds and support based on student behavior and needs.
Student Engagement: Every student should have the choice and control to pursue knowledge. By allowing students to select the content that interests them most, educators empower them to build their skills in the most meaningful way and motivate them to become lifelong readers. This means providing diverse content with mirrors, windows and doors. Students can see themselves and others within the text and learn about new experiences.

Fluency is a gateway to comprehension and motivation. When the eyes can take in text at a comfortable, adequate rate, energy is freed up for comprehension. When students understand material, they feel confident and motivated to continue to read.

Discovery How Reading Plus Can Support Reading Fluency

Reading Plus

The post Most Tested, Least Taught: Silent Reading Fluency appeared first on Discovery Education.

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How to Select and Implement a Reading Intervention Program

Fri, 04 Apr 2025 19:34:10 +0000

According to the latest NAEP assessment data, 2023 reading scores declined across the country. Consequently, school leaders and educators have considered how to respond to this updated data. Many school districts have implemented or plan to implement a reading intervention program that yields rapid results. However, not every reading intervention program is made equal, and there are a lot of factors to consider before you make the investment. In this article, the DE team shares recommendations from experts on selecting and effectively implementing a reading intervention program for your district’s needs.

Four Factors for an Effective Reading Intervention Program

1. Evidence of Effectiveness

It should come as no surprise that evidence of effectiveness is considered to be the biggest influence on decision-making for the majority of educators. When the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was passed in 2015, educators increased their focus on programs with evidence of impact to ensure better student outcomes. When selecting any new curriculum resource, it is necessary to evaluate its effectiveness to determine if the proven impacts match district goals and needs.

“Effectiveness is huge, and most programs have some measures of data,” says Larry Shifflett, Assistant Superintendent of Innovation and Learning for Rockingham County Public Schools. “We rely on our teachers and their expertise to say, ‘here [are] the gains we’re seeing with the kids, and here’s the ease of the program and how it works’…so teacher buy-in is tremendous. They’ll know if it’s a good program or not.”

For reading intervention programs, there are a variety of skills that these programs may cover, and not every student needs remediation on every reading skill. Evaluating a program’s effectiveness on the specific components of reading students in your district need remediation on ensures that the program will match your goals and help your students succeed.

2. Teacher Buy-In

Of course, teacher judgment follows close behind, as a reading intervention can be implemented in a broad range of contexts, including across the whole school, in a subject-area classroom, or through a supplemental program. Teachers will be the ones directing and overseeing student use of the program, so having their buy-in is critical.

Although a wealth of success stories from other schools and districts can point you in the right direction, you should also consider piloting the program in your particular school or district to understand if it’s right for you. Every state, district, and school has their own set of challenges, but they also have their own set of educators working hard to improve student achievement. Gaining educator support of a new initiative or curriculum ensures these resources will actually be used with fidelity, and a strong implementation will prepare educators to try new things.

After all, as Shifflett says, “The programs are no better than the people who run them…. We’re professionals, we’re the educators—and the programs are tools and resources we use to move [students] along.” Shifflett also advises, when you evaluate reading intervention programs, you should consider their flexibility and ensure that you’re taking into account teachers’ opinions of each program. How well can your teachers work with and around the program to maximize its effectiveness? How can you ensure this program doesn’t add to teachers’ plates, but instead alleviates some of the pressures of improving student reading abilities?

3. Flexibility with Hybrid and Remote Learning

The 2023 NAEP data indicated that higher-performing students were more likely to read for fun. To help inspire students to create positive reading habits, reading intervention programs should offer out-of-classroom access to resources. Allowing students to practice reading skills at home or at school also mitigates challenges that can come with student absenteeism or even changing school schedules due to events and assessments.

As a teacher working directly with students in the classroom, Beth Carabetta, Reading Coach, Maloney High School in Meriden, CT, sets her students up for success by remaining flexible in her instructional approach, allowing students to select the texts of most interest to them, and encouraging students to continue their reading practice outside of the classroom. “Another thing that’s important to student success is being able to offer anytime-anywhere learning,” she continues. “To really make gains in reading, being able to utilize a program not only within the walls of the classroom but outside of the classroom as well.”

4. Student Choice and Control

A 2015 study of eighth graders found that when students experienced a shift from assigned, required reading to independently chosen reading materials, student engagement saw a significant increase. Students who are struggling readers may not find reading exciting or fun but encouraging them to pursue their interests and read about topics that interest them can help create more positive connections with reading. Reading intervention programs that allow for student agency and choice can take some of the “work” out of the experience.

“Students—especially at the high school level—like to have a choice in the materials they’re reading and have some control over what they’re reading, provided that it’s at their level,” says Carabetta. “With the Reading Plus program, that’s definitely something that students have the ability to do.” That flexibility and control over what, when, and where students can engage with texts is one of the key characteristics to look for in your reading intervention.

“We were looking for [a reading intervention program] to give students confidence and make them feel empowered,” agrees Susan Perrone, Supervisor of Curriculum & Accountability, Meriden Public Schools, who supports Carabetta at the district level. “We wanted to make sure that, as secondary students, they weren’t looking at things that were elementary. We wanted a program that had choice…that motivated them to change…that made them want to learn. Reading Plus really seemed to hit that mark.” Choosing an easy-to-use, flexible, and evidence-based intervention program will help you maximize your return on investment.

3 Key Ingredients of a Successful Implementation

Once you’ve chosen a reading intervention that suits your needs, how do you implement it to ensure its success? There are 3 ingredients to keep in mind as you write out a recipe for successful implementation.

Strong Leadership

Effective school leaders who encourage a culture of literacy to keep both teachers and students engaged in reading instruction may have the biggest influence on the success of your reading intervention. When leaders are committed to the program, willing to invest their time and energy into making sure it’s successful, and communicative about its importance, reading intervention programs are more likely to provide the reading growth that your students need.

Healthy Culture

A culture of safe, healthy, confident learning gives students the intrinsic motivation they need to drastically improve their reading scores. Motivation—along with comprehension and silent reading efficiency—is one of the most important components of developing reading skills in students.

Dedicated Teachers

At the end of the day, teachers are the leaders in their classrooms, and they already have strong relationships with their students, will help students believe that the program will work for them, and will use formative data from a the program to adjust and improve instruction as needed. Providing teachers with the support they need will be essential to the program’s success.

While the decline in reading scores is alarming and there is an urgency to respond, educators must be strategic when determining actions to help students gain necessary skills for proficiency. Now is the time to provide students with what they need to help them find success this year and, in the future, so that they can be on the path to graduate on time, pursue post-secondary opportunities and compete in a global economy. With this new assessment data in mind, it is important to consider what new information the data presents about student performance, instruction, and areas for growth. Reading intervention programs like Reading Park and Reading Plus can help educators tailor instruction to fit their students’ needs, and when implemented mindfully, can help make a great impact on student literacy skills.

Find More Ideas for Supporting Student Literacy!

Explore the Science of Reading

Supporting Literacy for All Learners

The post How to Select and Implement a Reading Intervention Program appeared first on Discovery Education.

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Developing Disciplinary Literacy Across Core Subjects

Fri, 04 Apr 2025 19:33:59 +0000

If we want students to learn biology, why not teach them to think, read and write like biologists? If we want them to learn history, shouldn’t they learn to think, read and write like historians?

Approaching core subjects from this perspective is at the heart of disciplinary literacy. Now more than ever, it’s become vital that educators instill literacy skills grounded in real careers, creating students with an expert’s eye for real-world materials, regardless of the medium.

Content-area reading uses generic reading strategies, regardless of the text that’s being read. But disciplinary literacy is a way of approaching text with the reading strategies employed by experts in a given field— experts have specialized ways of thinking, talking, and writing.

Introducing Multiple Perspectives is Key

Historians require the lens of multiple perspectives, reading between the lines of several writers to arrive at their conclusions. Mathematicians seek absolute answers, first and foremost, using abstract reasoning and pattern recognition to make their findings. Scientists employ analytical skills to parse the validity of data in research reports, finding logical links between various findings before formulating their hypotheses.

These experts don’t just rely on one resource. Their expertise is contingent on their own observations, along with the perspectives of others, expressed across several media types. Likewise, the days of using a single textbook as a teaching resource are over. Educators must begin using new types of resources in the classroom, including digital content and media to immerse students in real-world reading, writing and thinking.

The disciplinary literacy approach to reading reinforces the new era of teaching, which welcomes multiple resources and multiple media types, to help students form a grounded understanding of a subject that even experts would respect. Just recently, a superintendent said, “the combination of media integrated into the informational text makes students want to read.”

The hallmark of any focus on literacy — disciplinary or otherwise — is instilling the need and the desire to want to read.

“Each discipline has unique ways of asking questions and solving problems. Similarly, each discipline has unique expectations for the types of claims that are made and the way those claims are supported. These differences play out in the ways that texts are written and in the demands those texts place on the readers. For these reasons, we can say that each discipline has its own discourse community, a shared way of using language and constructing knowledge.” [1]

Disciplinary Literacy and State Standards

Although there is much debate about the purpose or primary job of schools, most who work in education would agree that an important purpose of a school is to develop literate individuals. The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts[1] identify the capacities of a literate individual as follows:

They demonstrate independence.
They build strong content knowledge.
They respond to the varying demands of audience, task, purpose, and discipline.
They comprehend as well as critique.
They value evidence.
They use technology and digital media strategically and capably.
They come to understand other perspectives and cultures.

These broad statements about what it means to be literate led the standards’ authors to decide that developing literacy in students is a joint responsibility that English Language Arts (ELA) teachers share with content area teachers. And while the foundational skills associated with literacy are infused in the K-5 ELA standards, the more specialized disciplinary literacy skills are listed in the Grades 6-12 Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects[2]. The standards that ELA teachers are responsible for teaching are listed under the following headings:

Reading: Literature
Reading: Informational Text
Writing
Speaking and Listening
Language

Content area teachers are also expected to teach standards related to reading informational text and standards related to writing. Because research has shown that experts in a field have specialized ways of thinking, talking, and writing about information that separate insiders within the field from the general public, the authors of the standards want content area teachers to teach students the specialized knowledge and skills that readers and writers use within the content area or discipline. In an article in the Harvard Educational Review[1], Cynthia and Timothy Shanahan present a model of literacy development that includes three stages.

1. Basic Literacy

Literacy skills such as decoding and knowledge of high-frequency words that underlie virtually all reading tasks.

2. Intermediate Literacy

Literacy skills common to many tasks, including generic comprehension strategies, common word meanings, and basic fluency.

3. Disciplinary Literacy

Literacy skills specialized to history, science, mathematics, literature, or other subject matter.

They argue that until recently, secondary (grades 6-12) educators have not focused enough attention on helping students master the discipline-specific ways of reading and writing that are characteristic of the content area that the teacher is teaching. Instead, the literacy focus in secondary classrooms remained on the intermediate literacy skills that are common to many disciplines, such as previewing the text, activating prior knowledge, using graphic organizers, and summarizing the text. While these skills are necessary and have a definite place in the secondary classroom, literacy instruction that fully prepares students for college, careers, and adult life also includes a focus on the more specialized literacy skills of each discipline. When students are asked to think, read, write, speak, and listen like an expert in the field, they develop the insider knowledge needed to succeed with intellectually challenging tasks.

Applying Real-World Behaviors to Bridge Literacy Across Subject Areas

By studying professionals working within a discipline, researchers recognized that the way historians read, write, and think is different from the way scientists or mathematicians use literacy skills within their work. A broad body of research on adolescent literacy development[2] suggests that while the literacy demands of school and the workplace have increased over time, the way we approach teaching literacy skills has not changed enough. The thinking and reasoning skills that individuals need to thrive in 21^st century daily life and professional careers are developed as content area teachers focus on teaching both the content of the field of study and the specialized literacy skills associated with the discipline.

The standards for Grades 6-12 Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects do not replace subject area standards, but instead complement them. These standards require teachers to use their content area expertise to help students master the challenges of thinking, reading, writing, speaking, and listening in the various subject areas.

Disciplinary Reading and Writing Skills

In keeping with the standards, the focus of disciplinary reading and writing should be on the following:

Disciplinary Reading Skills

Key Ideas and Details
- Citing Evidence from Text
- Central Ideas, Details, and Summary
Craft and Structure
- Vocabulary
- Text Structure
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
Text Features
Author’s Point of View, Fact or Opinion
Comparison
Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity

Disciplinary Writing Skills

Text Types and Purposes
- Argument Writing
- Informational/Explanatory Writing
Production and Distribution of Writing
Clarity and Coherence
- Attention to Task, Purpose, and Audience
- Writing Process and Revision
- Use of Technology
Research to Build and Present Knowledge
- Generating Questions and Conducting Research
- Gathering Relevant Information
- Drawing Evidence
Range of Writing

Let’s take a brief look at the literacy demands of selected subject areas outside of ELA and think about how teachers develop students’ thinking, reasoning, and communication skills by emphasizing the specialized way that experts in that subject area approach some of the focus areas listed above.

Thinking, Reading, Writing, Speaking, and Listening in Social Studies

Extensive work has been done on elucidating the skills historians and other social scientists use to do their work. Broadly speaking, historians study documents and other artifacts from the past to develop and communicate an understanding of what was occurring at a particular time in history. They are keenly aware that documents:

Present an incomplete picture of an actual event.
Represent a particular point of view.
Reflect the thinking and perspective of the author.

Historians want to know more than what happened in the past. They also want to understand why certain events happened. Why did people do what they did? How does what happened in the past connect to and inform the present? What does the past tell us about what might happen in the future?

Key ideas in the Grades 6-12 Literacy in History/Social Studies standards for reading include:

Analysis and Summary of Primary and Secondary Sources
Meaning of History/Social Studies Words and Phrases
Description and Analysis of Text Structure
Identification, Comparison, and Evaluation of Aspects of Text that Reveal Author’s Point of View
Integration of Visual Information, Quantitative and Qualitative Information, and Multiple Sources
Analysis of Author’s Claims
Comparison of Treatment of Topic in Primary and Secondary Sources

The writing standards do not differ by content area, but assume that the writing will be specific to the content of the discipline. The following is a sample of expectations from the writing standards. These examples are for students in grades 6 to 8.

Introduce claim(s) about a topic or issue, acknowledge and distinguish the claim(s) from alternate or opposing claims, and organize the reasons and evidence logically.
Develop a topic with relevant, well-chosen facts, definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples.
Conduct short research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) drawing on several sources and generating related, focused questions that allow for multiple avenues of exploration.

Many social studies teachers address the literacy standards as they teach social studies content by structuring their classes with a focus on social science inquiry and asking questions. They present students with primary source materials and guide students to ask important questions related to the documents they are reading. The Stanford History Education Group has developed a free online curriculum entitled, “Reading Like a Historian.”[3] Each lesson in the curriculum is focused on a central question and includes a set of primary source documents. Students are expected to investigate the set of documents using historical thinking skills like sourcing, contextualizing, close reading, and corroboration.

Students using the Stanford materials improved their reading comprehension, historical reasoning skills, and factual recall.[4] A major strength of the Stanford materials is that they provide a model that school districts and individual teachers are using to develop additional instructional materials. The historical thinking skills listed above certainly help students who wish to become historians, but they also provide students with reasoning skills that serve them well in a wide range of situations.

Thinking, Reading, Writing, Speaking, and Listening in Science

The traditional science class has included a number of assignments that appear on the surface to replicate the kinds of reading and writing that scientists do. Students read laboratory investigations to prepare for labs. They develop lab reports to tell about experiments they conducted in class. However, many science educators have worked to eliminate the need for students to struggle with the literacy demands of science laboratory work because they wanted to focus on laboratory skills and the science content.

Well-taught science classes have always emphasized collecting and analyzing data. Students have been taught that scientists respect data; they spend time developing powerful representations of data such as graphs and charts; and they value being able to replicate an experiment and get data that is similar to the data collected by other scientists who did the same experiment. But science classrooms have not always emphasized the literacy skills that are an integral part of the work of scientists.

In their professional work, scientists…

Read research reports that include abstracts, section headings, figures, tables, diagrams, drawings, photographs, reference lists, and endnotes. Often scientists do not read the entire document, but only the parts of the report that are of special interest.
Use technical vocabulary which often contain Latin or Greek roots. The vocabulary terms sometimes have one meaning in everyday discourse and a different and highly specialized meaning in science.
Use categories and taxonomies that represent abstract ways of thinking that are not typically captured in everyday thinking.
Analyze research reports of scientific findings through the lens of scientific reasoning. Key questions they consider include the following:
- What are the functions of the investigation—to explore, check previous results, test the explanatory power of a theory? The functions of the investigation will influence how the reader evaluates the evidence presented.
- What data has been collected and how has it been analyzed? Is the data appropriate to the questions and conclusions reached?
- What are the trade-offs of the research design, weighing what we can learn from experiments with controlled conditions versus what we can learn from naturalistic or direct observations?
- What are the logical links between data, findings, previously related research and widely accepted theory?
- What are potential sources of bias that may influence the findings and recommendations?[5]

Key ideas in the Grades 6-12 Literacy in Science and Technical Subjects standards for reading include the following:

Analysis and Summary of Science and Technical Texts
Following a Multistep Procedure
Understanding Symbols and Key Terms
Analysis of Text Structure
Purpose of Explanations and Procedures
Integration of Information Presented in Diverse Formats
Analysis and Evaluation of Reasoning and Evidence Presented in Text
Comparison of Findings from Varied Sources

Although the writing standards are the same as for history/social studies, they assume that the writing will be specific to science and technical content. The following is a sample of expectations from the writing standards. These examples are for students in grades 9 to 10.

Develop claim(s) and counterclaims fairly supplying data and evidence for each while pointing out the strengths and limitations of both in a manner that anticipates the audience’s knowledge level and concerns.
Introduce a topic and organize ideas, concepts, and information to make important connections and distinctions; include formatting (e.g., headings), graphics (e.g., figures, tables), and multimedia when useful to aiding comprehension.
Use precise language and domain-specific vocabulary to manage the complexity of the topic and convey a style appropriate to the discipline and context.
Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced searches effectively and integrating information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation.

Engaging students in well-designed scientific inquiry in the classroom allows them to develop the skills and thought processes of scientists. Helping students identify areas of interest within science and then working with them to conduct in-depth research over time lets them gain detailed insight into how knowledge develops. Teaching students how to question evidence and the logic of others helps them develop a set of skills that serve them well beyond the science classroom. For example, these same reasoning skills can be used in making personal health decisions, in making financial decisions, as well as in making decisions related to civic and political issues.

Thinking, Reading, Writing, Speaking, and Listening in Math

During the first year of their Carnegie-sponsored research on disciplinary literacy, the Shanahans (see footnote on page 1) worked with experts in history, mathematics, and chemistry to understand more about the specialized literacy skills of each discipline. The mathematicians in the study emphasized the importance of reading and re-reading text. They spoke to the importance of specialized vocabulary and understanding that the meaning of symbols may change depending on the context. Mathematicians also spend much of their professional time reading and interpreting graphs, charts, and tables.

A major goal of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics is to ensure that students spend time thinking about and solving worthwhile mathematics problems. The goal is to have students develop the habits of mind of the mathematician. The Standards for Mathematical Practice[6] identify eight skills that teachers at all levels should seek to develop in students. The standards state that mathematically proficient students:

Make sense of problems.
Persevere in solving problems.
Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
Construct viable arguments.
Critique the reasoning of others.
Use appropriate tools strategically.
Attend to precision.
Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.

In the mathematics classroom, students should have opportunities to address the standards for Grades 6-12 Literacy in Science and Technical Subjects, but the emphasis should be on the mathematics practices. Mathematics educators see practices 1 and 6 as reflecting overarching habits of mind of the mathematician. Many see practices 2 and 3 as practices that all contributing members of the mathematics community use on a regular basis as they communicate with others. They see practices 4 and 5 as being particularly relevant to how people use mathematics in many work settings, while practices 7 and 8 relate more closely to the work of theoretical mathematicians.

When students work with rich, real-world problems, they have the opportunity to use and develop many of the mathematics practices. The modern mathematics class requires students to collaborate and work with others to solve problems. Teachers give students opportunities to discuss different approaches to the same problem and ask them to think and talk about whether the answer makes sense in a real-world setting. Students also discuss whether or not their approach yielded a correct answer. Was the approach efficient? Can it be generalized, and will it work for all numbers? Why or why not? Through rich discussion, students develop mathematical thinking and reasoning skills as well as the ability to critique their own reasoning and the reasoning of others. Again, the reasoning and thinking skills serve students well in a wide range of settings and situations.

Karen Beerer

Explore Ideas for Literacy Instruction Across All Content Areas

Strengthening Student Literacy Skills

Building Background Knowledge

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