News and reflections from experts and practitioners on the latest literacy research, events and daily practice
Welcome to Learning Ally's blog. You've come to the right place if you are an innovative teacher who wants to transform more struggling readers into grade-level achievers.
February 28, 2022 by User
Addressing the critical mass of students underperforming in reading is a major concern. In this blog, Dr. Almitra Berry, CEO of A L Berry Consulting, Inc., raises some thought-provoking questions about equity and access and the keys to bridging the achievement gap. Dr. Berry is a nationally-recognized expert and author on culturally and linguistically diverse learners in America’s K12 education system. She says, "To achieve equity, we must have a fuller understanding of children's backgrounds regarding race, income, and education.”
Research on Provision Gaps
Dr. Berry's research focuses on provision gaps, equity*, and related challenges during the coronavirus pandemic for students of color with low-wealth who attend large, urban school districts. She says in the United States, there is a direct correlation between students’ race, income, and educational outcomes, and encourages teachers to revisit their knowledge of what we know about children’s equity status in the pre-kindergarten years.
“Research tells us that children from low income backgrounds are far more likely to stay at home with a parent or caregiver with no means of learning activities versus affluent students attending preschool or daycare with robust learning environments. Understanding of each child’s earliest years (birth to five) is critical to their ability to make learning progress. As importantly, we must educate ourselves to the latest findings about the science of reading and how we approach teaching children to read.”
Dr. Berry suggests that to change the dynamic of learning, we must recognize that diverse students are often marginalized, but believe that all children have the capacity to learn. “If children come to school with less knowledge than their peers, we must give them more of what they need -- more instruction, more background knowledge, more culturally-relevant books, more understanding about their preschool years. This can change the course of early childhood in spectacular ways," says Dr. Berry. In her recent 2021 Spotlight on Early Literacy discussion, Dr. Berry posed these indicators and questions for consideration:
Equity Indicators vs. Access
Meritocracy - How well does your curriculum and instruction result in equal outcomes in reading, writing, and reasoning?
Standards - How well does your curriculum and instruction result in all students' demonstration of mastery of a standard?
Impartiality - How well does your curriculum and instruction result in social justice and reflect the child’s needs? And, how well do we know our own social biases?
Asset Allocation - How equitable are curriculum assets chosen and highly qualified educators allocated to result in educational opportunities and academic excellence for all children? How frequently do we give students culturally-relevant books to identify themselves in the learning process?
By providing in-depth, explicit evidence-based reading instruction, giving more equitable access to curriculum, including culturally-relevant books and time to read, as well as paying attention to students’ diverse backgrounds and social and emotional beliefs about learning, we can help more students remain in general education and study with their peers.
Listen to Dr. Berry's full presentation on-demand about equity and access and earn a CE certificate.
To learn more from the nation’s top literacy experts and leading practitioners, sign up for our upcoming Spotlight series.
March 30, 2022: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion webinar (free)
June 10, 2022: Spotlight on Dyslexia virtual conference
*2015 article in the Hechinger Report excerpting a 33 country study estimates that the achievement gap in the U.S. between rich and poor is thirty-seven (37%).
Categories: Education & Teaching, Educators, Student Centric Learning, Teacher Best Practices, The Digital Age, Webinars
February 21, 2022 by User
Learning Ally is thrilled to have Dr. Shawn Robinson a/k/a Dr. Dyslexia Dude, as our celebrity guest host to bring our 2022 Great Reading Games to a finale. This award-winning program helps educators engage students to use human-read audiobooks to read at or above grade level, double their reading time and triple their reading frequency. The seven-week, rewards-based challenge begins in January to coincide with Read Across America national events and ends in early March.
Dr. Shawn Robinson is Senior Research Associate in the Wisconsin's Equity and Inclusion Laboratory, and an Instructional Program Manager in the Department of Rehabilitation Psychology and Special Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Whenever he shares his story, classrooms gain more inclusive efforts for helping children with dyslexia learn based on their needs.
Dyslexia makes reading books difficult for students with this learning disability. Many books in print present great challenges or are out of reach, including grade-level curriculum. For these learners, a multimedia approach, like reading and listening to human-read audiobooks, may help to unlock their learning potential and get students hooked on reading. Especially if the books are culturally-relevant and students can identify with the main characters and themes, like the Dr. Dyslexia Dude graphic novels written by Dr. Robinson.
About the Dr. Dyslexia Dude series
Dr. Dyslexia Dude is an exciting, colorful author, often humorous and an inspiration for kids, parents, and teachers. His books, Doctor Dyslexia Dude, Dr. Dyslexia Dude: Battle for Resilience, and Dr. Dyslexia Dude: Cracking the Code are available in the Learning Ally audiobook library. The main character in the 3-volume graphic novel is an African-American boy who is a superhero with dyslexia. The capped character is autobiographically based on the sometimes painful, early life experiences of Dr. Robinson. He and co-author, Mrs. Inshirah Robinson, empower more students to stay encouraged and know they can achieve greatness. Their stories open the minds of young students with reading challenges to the possibilities that life offers – all while living worthwhile, productive, and successful lives.
Increase Reading Fluency and Stamina
Teachers who use the Audiobook Solution can easily implement the Great Reading Games into class instruction to strengthen daily reading practice, build stronger reading habits, and boost learning confidence, while providing equitable access to grade-level curriculum and popular books. Students get excited to see how many pages and books they have read on 12 school leaderboards that track individual progress by grade range. As reading frequency builds, students receive points for reading. Prizes are awarded to students, teachers, and schools. At the finale, students participate in a live chat with a celebrity guest author.
We thank Dr. Robinson for guest hosting our 2022 Games, and invite your school to participate next year to spark reading enjoyment and be inspired by another amazing celebrity author. Other celebrity authors hosting the Great Reading Games include Kwame Alexander, author of the “Crossover” series, Jeff Kinney, author of “Diary of a Wimpy Kid”, and Aidan Colvin, author of “Looking for Heroes.”
Categories: Authors for Access, Books, Authors, & Movies, dyslexia, In the news, Learning Disabilities, Student Centric Learning, The Digital Age, The Great Reading Games
February 16, 2022 by User
At our Spotlight Learning Series Virtual Conference, Early Literacy and the Whole Child, Brent Conway, Assistant Superintendent of Pentucket Regional School District in West Newbury, MA spoke about his success and learnings with building the early literacy systems needed to close the achievement gap. Here are Conway's recommendations using Tier 1 systems to improve literacy at a school or district level based on the science of reading. Register for the full recording on-demand and learn about our Spotlight Series to enhance your literacy and leadership knowledge and practice.
Driving Big Beliefs
Conway believes all students are general education students first. “If a vast majority of students are not reading well, there is a systemic breakdown. If there are high numbers of students reading below grade level, schools cannot intervene their way out of a Tier 1 problem.”
To achieve annual growth for all students, leadership must develop systems to ensure structured literacy is at the heart of teaching. This includes delivery of quality curriculum with a tiered level of intensity, frequency, and format of instruction. It takes time to drive new beliefs in a school system and establish a common understanding about what the research tells us to do. We have to evaluate what we are actually doing. Years of research and evidence conclude that models like the Simple View and *Scarborough's Reading Rope are powerful ways to capture all elements necessary in our curriculum and instruction for children to become proficient readers.
Tier 1 System
Reading is not a natural process. Children must be taught how to read, given time to read, given background knowledge and vocabulary, and culturally-relevant books. Daily reading practice is also critical. Tier 1 systems goals are to ensure children who are the farthest behind receive direct, explicit instruction to have a solid base of foundational knowledge.
Leadership must acknowledge the need to develop a system that includes delivering the right evidence-based reading instruction and curriculum, professional development for teachers, screening tools, product protocols and progress monitoring to produce change. Conway's schools use DIBELS to determine if students are making progress toward reading goals and mastering curriculum objectives and state standards. “When you have systems and structures in place, you make the best use of the curriculum and instructional routines,” he says.
Focus on Reading Comprehension
Conway’s schools focus on reading comprehension to examine what is working and what is not. “Reading comprehension is an outcome, not an actual skill,” he says. “It relies on language, vocabulary, syntax grammar combined with decoding and frequency. Direct, systemic, explicit instruction and fluency is the greatest predictor of reading proficiency.”
Reading comprehension of text is best facilitated by teaching children a variety of techniques and systematic strategies to assist in recall of information, generating questions and summarizing information. “If a child's decoding skills or language comprehension skills are weak, reading outcomes are weak. If their fluency skills are weak, look at their word recognition skills. If their automaticity is weak, look at decoding skills. Our systems must be able to lead us to the point of breakdown and where our instruction needs to be directed for each child.”
Prioritize Early Literacy
Leadership must prioritize literacy in early childhood, even preK and develop a literacy plan that includes:
A leadership planning team
Core instruction
Intervention
Literacy assessment and use of data
Literacy professional development
Resources to support literacy
Tier 1 systems should be accessible by most students. Conway recommends using models like the Simple view and Reading Rope to capture all elements that should be included in curriculum and instruction. Encourage staff to share ownership of the system with a common goal to move as many children as possible up to grade-level reading. Base instruction on the science of reading. Build schedules based on data to catch children who are falling behind. Provide targeted skill practice and direct instruction based on every child’s needs. Make time for daily reading practice.
Take a deep dive into literacy with Brent Conway at two upcoming education leadership panels on February 23, and March 23, 2022. Call 800-221-1098.
Learning Ally works with leading experts in early childhood and whole child literacy, dyslexia, social and emotional learning, and evidence-based reading instruction to help educators unlock the learning potential of all students. Our “Perspectives on Whole Child Literacy” blog features exclusive content from literacy thought leaders who believe…“With the right mindset, leadership, evidence-based instruction, and social-emotional modeling, all children can become successful readers and achievers.
*Scarborough, H. S. (2001). Connecting early language and literacy to later reading (dis)abilities: Evidence, theory, and practice. In S. Neuman & D. Dickinson (Eds.), Handbook for research in early literacy (pp. 97–110). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Categories: Curriculum & Access, Early Literacy, Education & Teaching, Reading Strategies for K-12, Student Centric Learning
February 11, 2022 by User
“Reading failure can be prevented in all but a tiny percentage of children who have serious learning disorders,” says Kate Walsh, President of the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ). “The number of kids’ lives that can be improved by better instruction in schools is heartening and also devastating because we haven’t been doing it.”
In a webinar moderated by Learning Ally’s Dr. Terrie Noland, Kate discusses how teacher preparation programs, school administrators, and classroom teachers can make changes to increase students’ reading proficiency. By the fourth grade, 65% of students are not proficient readers. Kate says that number can be reduced to about 5% by implementing curriculum that follows reading science. Based on several decades of scientific evidence, the reading science shows how children learn to read.
“There is definitely a fundamental misunderstanding of what it takes to learn how to read,” Kate says. “It is not something that comes to us naturally. It’s a skill we have to learn.” She emphasizes that early reading curriculum should focus not only on decoding but also on vocabulary and background knowledge to increase reading comprehension, beginning in Kindergarten.
In this webinar, Kate details how to determine if a curriculum is truly science-based, how to supplement a curriculum that is not science-based, and how to ensure that elementary school teachers are equipped to perform their most important job – teaching children how to read.
Learn more by listening to a recording of the complete webinar.
Learning Ally works with leading experts in early childhood and whole child literacy, dyslexia, social and emotional learning, and evidence-based reading instruction to unlock the learning potential for all students. Our “Perspectives on Whole Child Literacy” blog features exclusive content from literacy thought leaders who believe…“With the right mindset, leadership, structured literacy, and social-emotional modeling, all children can become successful readers and achievers.
Categories: Curriculum & Access, Early Literacy, Education & Teaching, General, Reading Strategies for K-12, Teacher Best Practices
February 8, 2022 by User
Brandon P. Fleming, a nationally acclaimed Harvard educator and author of MISEDUCATED: A Memoir, was our keynote speaker at our Spotlight on Early Literacy and the Whole Child virtual conference in January. Fleming shared a compelling story about his own life - a life of poverty and despair; a life of struggle at home and in school, a young life of being illiterate. A life almost certain to have gone a different route for a child at-risk, but turned around by someone who cared about him - a teacher who inspired him to rise from nothing to joining the Harvard University debate faculty at age 27. Fleming became an award-winning educator. At Harvard, he established an unprecedented program, the Harvard Diversity Project – that has pipelined Black youth into the Ivy League.
Growing Up Invisible
Brandon Fleming grew up in an abusive home. He was ignored by his teachers, neglected by family and abused by his stepfather. Teachers gave him passing grades because of his skill on the basketball court, but he lacked basic skills in reading and writing. Depression almost pushed him over the edge, but a teacher saw something in him that no one else in his entire life did -- potential. She believed in him and helped him to believe in himself. She encouraged him to read books that interested him and led him to immerse himself in the works of Black thinkers.
Looking Beyond the Metrics
Fleming's message is one of resilience and second chances, but also love. He calls educators to look beyond required metrics to the whole child and to recognize stereotypes we may have about disadvantaged youth.
"So often we lead with judgment about a person or student we encounter," said Fleming. "Continued failure puts a child in desperation. When a child knows that you care about them first, they will try to please you. It is up to us to know their stories. To try and understand their background, and to show interest by learning what their interests are. We must encourage them to have ambitions."
Fleming went from being almost illiterate to having mastery over language and debate. He leads an executive staff and board that has raised over a million dollars to enroll over 100 students of color into Harvard’s international summer debate residency on full scholarships. His students have matriculated to Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and other universities.
Equity and Empathy...How Far Will You Go?
Fleming urges educators to gain the trust of their students first. To use empathy and equity and love as instruments to activate learning. "Young people cannot be what they cannot see," he reminds us. His book, "Miseducated," is a personal narrative about his transformation from being ignored and feeling invisible to becoming a proud scholar and to recognizing the accomplishments of others like him.
"As a teacher, we have a sphere of influence and power. We can introduce culturally-relevant books that resonate with children's own lives, traditions and experiences. Representation is the lens through which we see and learn. Every one of us is called to love first and teach second. Imagine what kind of results we would have in our country and the world [if we did that]."
With Literacy Comes a Sense of Self
Fleming’s advice to teachers is to..."Build instruction around the student through literacy. Help children see their own identity and make them feel like they belong. We expect children to come to our class ready to consume knowledge, but that isn't the reality for many, many kids. Our first job is to make learning relevant to the learner and put the child’s interests at the center."
Unlocking Equity for Millions of Students
At Learning Ally, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) are a part of each and every one of our team members. DEI drives our culture, our solutions and ultimately the equality in educational outcomes that Mr. Fleming advocates for and our organization strives to achieve. To that end, we invite you to join us for our next Spotlight on Diversity, Equity & Inclusion webinar coming up on March 30, 2022.
Categories: Books, Authors, & Movies, Early Literacy, Education & Teaching, Educators, General, Student Centric Learning, The Digital Age
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