Weekend reading, coming right up!
Featuring @hollykorbey.bsky.social @katasolow.bsky.social @natwexler.bsky.social @natejoseph.bsky.social @chadaldeman.bsky.social and so many more.
www.karenvaites.org/p/the-latest...
Kelsey Piper had me at the headline, “Teaching kids to read isn’t just phonics.”
I love seeing the importance of background knowledge and text-rich instruction get its due.
Great read:
@natwexler.bsky.social @katasolow.bsky.social @missypurcell.bsky.social
open.substack.com/pub/theargum...
I am, once again, struck by the poverty of examples of how AI will meaningfully improve student learning. If anyone thinks these relatively simplistic tasks are the key to education revolution, I invite them to join me on a tour of literally any American school district to reassess their position.
This piece had me at the title:
“Stop Being Such F****** Killjoys”
A timely call by @katasolow.bsky.social to end silly infighting in k-12 spaces.
open.substack.com/pub/scienceo...
there is really a blogpost to be written entitled "if you have a hammer everything is a nail"
the hammer is UFLI
#SoR #SoRSky
(*i love UFLI. so useful, so great. but. i stand by my words. esp for Ts 4th grade & up, & all Ts who have small group time & are confused about life post-F&P)
New reporting from the APM Reports Sold a Story team.
Nation's Report Card at risk: www.apmreports.org/story/2025/0...
Lawsuit saves massive reading study: www.apmreports.org/story/2025/0...
Another study slams shut: www.apmreports.org/story/2025/0...
New episode: www.apmreports.org/episode/2025...
We’ve also been talking to some schools and districts about how we can help them build and manage this sort of PD. If you’d like to have a conversation about this, get in touch!
It has been a joy to help create the kind of professional development I wish I had when I was in the classroom: instructionally-focused, teacher-led, video-based. I wrote a piece for the @shankerinst.bsky.social about how it works and how you can DIY this PD in your own school or district.
This is actually what happens when states gut public education. This is actually what happens when the federal government cancels grants: a talented educator leaves the classroom--and kids get less literate.
Not sure where I want to end this thread, other than to refer all of the edu-pundits who allegedly care about literacy and "out-of-control" education spending to it.
This is partially a funding problem--if the federal grant hadn't randomly evaporated, if the state could backstop it. But it's also a nihilism problem. Her state is gutting public education. I know there are similar stories across her state and across the country.
Just a deeply frustrating situation. I don't blame the district. They want to keep her. They know her value. She also wants to keep living in her tightly-knit community and supporting her students. She wants to do this work.
She's also thinking about HER future. The school year hasn't even started yet, and she's wondering if she should:
1. Take a regular teaching job
2. Leave public education and do consulting work (already has offers)
So now this teacher suddenly finds herself spread incredibly thin, no time to iterate and build capacity, anxious about the year, not sure how she'll manage between 3 campuses, assumes her students (who were making so much progress) will suffer.
1. Continue intervention work at HS.
2. Start doing intervention work at alt HS.
3. Start teaching 2 sections of English at MS.
4. Start doing intervention work at MS.
After layoffs, it's the only way they can keep her.
Her position was funded by a federal grant...and that funding has disappeared. Her state is also slashing education spending. Her district desperately wants to keep her...so they are. But here's her new job description:
You might think that the state would notice and try to support her to scale and spread this work. You might think she'd have the opportunity to iterate on this relatively new model. Maybe she can do some capacity building? If that's what you're thinking, you'd VERY be wrong.
Rant incoming.
Just spoke to a high school literacy specialist who in 3 years has built a successful literacy intervention program at her small, rural school (msg me to learn more). What's next for this teacher, you may wonder?
And now Faith Howard is joining our next cohort of Goyen Literacy Fellows. Couldn't be more excited to work with and learn from this brilliant educator!
Coming Friday: Educators and experts say students are reading fewer books in English class—that the entire priority of English class has changed. What’s behind the shift? Subscribe to The Bell Ringer and find out which ELA curricula make reading whole books a priority.
Wow.
Elana Gordon does intervention with students well-below their peers in reading skills.
“At this point in the year, I have exited 26 students from intervention, meaning that these students not only made progress but caught up to their peers.”
open.substack.com/pub/scienceo...
TL;DR
After adopting EBLI, reading interventionist Elana Gordon has exited 26 students (!) from her intervention groups this year. 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯
Skeptical? She's got data to prove it. Read about her data and work here.
open.substack.com/pub/scienceo...
Calling all the folks who care about kids and/or science. Yes, that's you! A zoom call with Matt Burns, professor and researcher from University of Florida this Wednesday, April 9th. It's part of a week of action in defense of the science of reading. Register here: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
Tomorrow! Wed 4/9 at 7:30
Join us to write letters to local papers to amplify this message: our federal edu research infrastructure matters, it has been decimated, it must be restored!
We have 20 signups - can we get to 50? All hands on deck.
#StandUpForReadingResearch #SaveIES
Venn diagram of research and practice that says "Where they meet, students succeed. Millions in IES research contracts have been canceled, endangering the next generation of of the reading science."
#StandUpForReadingResearch
@standup4research.bsky.social saw lots of support for science and education at today’s Hands Off event in Pasadena. It’s the start of a full week of action. Learn more here: linktr.ee/standupforre...
Mark your calendars. Gather your people. We're showing up for reading research and we need you there too. linktr.ee/standupforre...
This is such a great Tools for Practice—educator Elana Gordon shares her practice of helping students use learned content for sentence writing. Don't miss it!
Are your students struggling to parse and compose complex sentences?
Read all about Elana Gordon's work in @hollykorbey.bsky.social's Tools for Practice...and how she combines content learning with sentence construction in an intervention setting.
