The annual "What's Hot in Literacy" survey identifies current priorities in literacy education, highlighting the evolving landscape of the field. A panel of twenty-five literacy leaders participate in interviews to identify the most emphasized, least emphasized, and most deserving topics of increased attention. The 2024 findings…

This study utilized a systematic review methodology to explore best practices in improving reading fluency. The literature was searched to determine how the current curricular trends of technology, phonemic awareness and phonics, independent reading, and complex text and vocabulary can improve reading fluency in K-12 students. Potential studies…

Improving reading instruction is one of the hottest topics in K-12 education today. It is also one of the most complex, encompassing pedagogy, policy, and politics -- all rooted in a long history of arguments about the best way to teach kids to read. This analysis is a primer on the "Science of Reading" and efforts to implement it across…

Prepared for teachers, school administrators, parents, and other members of the interested public, this summary of Marilyn Jager Adams'"Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning about Print" selects from the complex and extensive body of research in the book to present a more direct but much less detailed account of useful, research-based…

The question of whether research supports a "phonics first" approach to teaching reading is not entirely answerable by factual evidence or statistical data: the issue is partly a matter of values and opinion. The debate is over whether phonics should be taught and tested in isolation, as a prelude to reading texts (the phonics-first…

A child's success in learning to read in the first grade appears to be the best predictor of his or her ultimate success in schooling as well as all of the events and outcomes that correlate with that. Yet, across the research literature reviewed for a recent book, "Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning about Print," children's…

Drawing on an array of research on the nature and development of reading proficiency, this book argues that educators need not remain trapped in the phonics versus teaching-for-meaning dilemma and offers instructional alternatives. The book proposes that phonics can work together with the whole language approach to reading and provides an…

Creating a link between current research findings and classroom practice, this book analyzes, compares, and critiques prevalent classroom strategies in beginning reading instruction in light of expertise available in other countries. The book begins with a section on "Points of Departure," consisting of three chapters:…