“Literacy is one of the major antidotes to poverty.” These words from Dr. Douglas Fisher have stuck with me since I heard them while attending the 2017 Florida Reading Conference. Through my experiences as both a student and educator, I have developed a fascination with how we learn to read and a drive to discover how we can best support those who struggle with this essential skill, particularly those living in poverty.

When I began teaching, I was not prepared to help the 36 kindergarteners in front of my coteacher and me learn to read. We had a print-rich environment. We were both book lovers with a burtsting classroom library. However, we had practically no curriculum and a bare-bones scope and sequence. On top of all this, I don’t think either one of us, both brand new teachers, really had any idea how children learn to read. We had a couple of students who came in ready for chapter books, but we also had children who had never held a book. Through experience and my own reading, I’ve seen that learning to read is not something our brains have evolved to do easily (Dehaene, 2009). 

Knowing that some students will not pick up reading as easily as others means we must be intentional in how we approach teaching literacy skills. While humans can learn in a variety of ways, as Lyn Stone points out, our brains are more similar than they are different (Lovell, 2022). Therefore, we should teach in ways that are likely to support learning in the greatest number of students. Literacy instruction should be explicit, systematic, and cumulative. It should include oral language, phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. It must build students’ knowledge of the world while honoring its diversity, and it should promote an intrinsic joy in reading.

When I began teaching, I treated each lesson like a mystery students had to solve. Literacy instruction cannot be left to discovery learning. Literacy skills are too important to use anything less than direct instruction. Students should know the instructional goals for each lesson. The gradual release of responsibility has proven an excellent way of offering students ample opportunities to observe skilled reading, practice reading collaboratively, receive coaching on their reading, and practice reading independently. I’ve also seen great engagement and reflection when students are able to self-assess their progress toward learning goals.

In order to allow students to focus on new learning, I have found it most helpful when instruction is systematic as well. When students know the way a lesson will flow, they can shift their cognitive energy to taking in the new knowledge rather than learning a new activity. This does not mean there is no room for fun and games! Rather, the flow of a lesson should be mostly predictable with room for variation within each component. Literacy instruction should be aslo be cumulative. Each skill should be taught to mastery with new skills building on previously learned ones in a logical, predetermined order.

Recently, I have found that literacy instruction is most powerful when it builds students’ knowledge. Rather than jumping from one topic to the next week after week, students should be immersed in fewer topics over longer periods of time so they may build deep knowledge. When students have knowledge of a topic, they are able to more easily read and understand more challenging texts on these subjects. This is important if we want our children to have solid knowledge of the world, particularly when subjects like Science and Social Studies are being squeezed out of daily schedules. Ultimately, it will increase their capacity for wide reading as well.

For me, the ultimate goal of learning to read is not just the knowledge, but also the joy we acquire through reading. I was fortunate to learn to read early and easily. I cannot imagine what my life would have been like if this was not the case. Unfortunately, after ten years of working with students, I have now met so many students who don’t enjoy reading, many because it is a struggle. Teachers must make sure reading is a pleasurable activity for students. They must read aloud with expression and share their readings lives with others. After hearing Jon Sciezka speak, I began inviting my male friends to read aloud to my class to show them that men read too. I invested a good portion of my paycheck back into my classroom library, so that kids could have something they enjoyed. Literacy is more than just work; it should be enjoyable as well.

Literacy is an essential skill, and those who struggle to master it will likely toil throughout their lives. There are steps every teacher can take, no matter the grade or subject, to make a literate life more accessible to students. We have to be intentional, explicit, and systematic in how we provide literacy instruction. We have to help students establish a foundation of knowledge so they can continue building their understanding of the world even beyond our classrooms. Possibly most importantly, we have to make a literate life something all students want to obtain. Books can help us better understand ourselves and others. Literacy is a human right.

References

Dehaene, S. (2009). Reading in the brain: The new science of how we learn to read. New York: Penguin Books.

Lovell, O. (Host). (2022, June 2). Lyn Stone on literacy instruction and the big six (No. 66) [Audion podcast episode]. In Education research reading room. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/errr-066-lyn-stone-on-literacy-instruction-and-the-big-six/id1200068608?i=1000564954212