Since 2007, Texas' reading scores had been declining, and there was a shortage of qualified teachers trained in effective reading practices. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) conceptualized Reading Academies where teachers learn, practice, implement and reflect. Cohort Leaders serve as the lead facilitators for the new K-3 Reading Academies. TEA…

Evidence-based core instruction partnered with evidence-based supplemental interventions are vital for students' literacy learning, particularly for students who need additional support (Petscher et al., 2020). Identifying instructional materials that reflect the translation of effective practices is challenging, (Solari et al., 2020) and made…

Phonological awareness and phonics instruction are necessary components of beginning reading instruction and require teachers to have specialized content, pedagogical, and pedagogical content knowledge. This includes knowledge about language structures; reading components, processes, and development; and effective instructional practices. In this…

Although reading remains a priority in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the basis of the case law primarily is the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) due in significant part to its open adjudicative avenue. The purpose of this article is to provide a synthesis of the judicial rulings under the IDEA specific to reading…

When educational policies require pre-service teacher practicum mentors to continuously implement a mandated scripted reading curriculum, limits are placed on pre-service teachers observing only these reading instruction methods. Novice teachers, who are developing their reading pedagogy, need the opportunity to explore a variety of methods…

Drawing on the authors' experiences as Black parents, researchers, teachers, and teacher educators, this timely book presents a multipronged approach to affirming Black lives and literacies. The authors believe change is needed--not within Black children, but in the way they are perceived and educated, particularly in reading, writing, and…

The goal of a Comprehensive K-3 Reading Policy is to ensure all students read on grade level by the end of third grade. This document shows why a K-3 reading policy is necessary, discusses evidence and research, and explains the fundamental principles of a comprehensive early literacy policy.

By tracing roughly 200 years of the formation of American school subjects, this paper complicates some of the self-evidence for calls to adapt school subjects according to complex health concerns, more recently amplified by COVID-19. To do so, the paper diagrams a counter-memory of three key amalgams of health related to the makings of school…

A Comprehensive K-3 Reading Policy establishes support and intensive reading interventions for K-3 students to ensure they read on grade level by the end of third grade. The policy also requires third grade students to demonstrate sufficient reading skills for promotion to fourth grade. For students severely below grade level and who do not…

The author explores the Names, Journeys, and Dreams project, in which culturally and linguistically diverse learners and their families engaged with picturebooks that inspired dialogic conversations, authentic writing, and family-school connections. The author provides four recommendations for incorporating picturebooks within the reading support…

Recently, the term "science of reading" has been used in public debate to promote policies and instructional practices based on research on the basic cognitive mechanisms of reading, the neural processes involved in reading, computational models of learning to read, and the like. According to those views, such data provide convincing…

The author, a former early grades teacher, recounts how she overcome erratic curriculum implementation to find her own way to effective reading instruction. What worked for her was an emphasis on explicit phonics in the context of providing engaging and relevant reading material for her students. "As a matter of educating the whole…

Black youth deserve rich opportunities to cultivate their own reading identities, says Kimberly Parker, cofounder of #DisruptTexts. In connecting them to their reading identities, teachers must cultivate these students' ability to see themselves as deserving of literacy and the freedom that being literate brings. Writes Parker, "We can ask…

Reading workshop is a way for students to find what kinds of books they love, practice reading independently, and move up to higher levels of reading with teacher guidance. This type of workshop can develop a lifelong love of reading in children. But several conditions need to be met to make it successful. The authors discuss those conditions,…

The activity described in this paper is based on the idea that reading an introductory undergraduate mathematics text is similar to reading instructions. I want my students to think about how to read when the goal is to learn to complete a task. I give them written instructions for doing a card trick and ask them to complete the trick. The…