2023 Literacy Learning Landscape 

If you had a crystal ball, what would you envision for literacy in 2023?

• Comprehensive early reading development focused on phonics, linguistics, and language-based skills.
• Oral language as the bedrock of early literacy.
• Reenergizing the joy of reading by providing authentic, culturally relevant text, and not limiting children to leveled text.
• Using recovery act funds to address COVID learning loss. 
• Schoolwide shifts that encourage every teacher to be a “reading” teacher.
• High quality, high dosage tutoring programs. 
• Professional learning in the science of reading and brain-based learning.

If you are predicting a learning landscape like this, you are in agreement with three of our brightest experts on literacy, Dr. Molly Ness, Dr. Katie Pace Miles, and Natalie Wexler. These incredible thought leaders gave their predictions in a recent Learning Ally webinar to explore the 2023 literacy landscape

You can register to view their full presentation and conversation at no cost on-demand to learn about: 

• Early learning instructional skills. 

• Cognitive load theory and working memory, and how they relate to learning to ensure students are reading comprehensively.

• Views about artificial intelligence for learning.

• The importance of teaching writing, and much more. 

We’re touching on the high points here, but encourage you to view the webinar. 

Take a Broader Lens to Literacy Instruction

Our thought leaders describe early reading instruction as a “symphony” of essential reading components that must be taught simultaneously to ensure all children become successful readers. Hear them take a deep dive into reading instruction best practices and discuss encoding, high-frequency words, opportunities to read and listen to complex text, the importance of conversation, text-based vocabulary, background knowledge, constrained and unconstrained skills, and encoding.

Learn how the brain’s conscious memory works to take on new information for recall, and how modulating a heavy cognitive load with linear outlines acts as a roadmap for learning. Also learn why the more knowledge we have in long-term memory, the better capacity we have for reading,

Learn about the exciting shift of “all” teachers becoming “reading teachers” to reinforce reading skills in every subject area to build agency knowledge. Learn approaches to do this in your own class that might include read-alouds/think-alouds of complex text, discussions focused on the chosen text, and staying on the topic for longer periods of time to deepen  comprehension. 

Hear why too much instruction in phonics for decoding, and not enough language-based skills for comprehension or vice versa won’t move the needle on reading mastery.

Covid Relief Funds 

Dr. Miles discusses the use of federal Covid relief funds in the most effective ways with planned goals and measured outcomes to remediate the most vulnerable student populations. Schools must capture what approaches worked and what did not. These funds end in September 2024. 

High-Quality, High Dosage Tutoring 

Explore why tutoring programs are becoming more prominent in schools to address learning loss. Research by the Annenberg Brown University demonstrates a clear need for evidence-based tutoring programs delivered with fidelity three to five days a week by highly qualified tutors to meet the rigors of learning and relearning important skills. In many teaching universities, literacy professors are now embedding tutoring programming into pre-teachers’ field practices. 

Professional Learning A Must

More administrators and teachers are recognizing the need to update their professional knowledge in the science of reading and brain-based learning instruction. 

In addition to this webinar, you might want to review Learning Ally’s professional learning services, our Spotlight Series events, and the new, award-winning Effective PreK-6 Brain-Based Literacy Instruction programming. 

About the Presenters

Dr. Molly Ness, V.P. of Academic Content, Learning Ally is a former classroom teacher, a reading researcher, and a teacher educator. She holds a doctorate in reading education from the University of Virginia, and spent 16 years as an associate professor at Fordham University. She is the author of four books and numerous peer-reviewed articles about dyslexia, comprehension, and teachers’ instructional decisions. She began the End Book Deserts podcast to bring attention to the issue of book access and equity. She serves on the Board of Directors for the International Literacy Association and on the elementary advisory panel for Penguin Random House.

Natalie Wexler holds a BA from Harvard, an MA in history from the University of Sussex, and a JD from the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of The Knowledge Gap…The Hidden Cause of American’s Education System and How to Fix It.  She has written articles and essays for a number of publications, including the New York Times, The Atlantic, and the Washington Post. She is a senior contributor to Forbes.com focusing on education, and has been interviewed on TV and radio shows and podcasts, including Morning Joe, and NPR’s On Point and 1A. 

Katie Pace Miles is an Associate Professor at Brooklyn College City University of New York. Dr. Miles’ research includes orthographic mapping, high frequency word learning, reading interventions and literacy instruction that are both developmentally appropriate and grounded in the science of reading. She is the academic advisory for Reading Rescue, an evidence-based intervention for the first and second grade students. She is the author of Reading Ready, an explicit and systematic word reading curriculum for kindergarten and first graders. She is also the founder and principal investigator of CUNY Reading Core, which improves pre-service re-service teacher training, and provides high dosage free tutoring to historically underserved New York City students. 

Valerie Chernek writes about educational best practices through the use of technology and the science of reading in support of teachers, children, and adolescents who struggle with learning differences.