The Science of Reading for Educators

For the past ten years, I have been fortunate enough to be a state certified trainer in North Carolina for the state’s Reading Research to Classroom Practice training. In this course, we teach our participants that there are three basic principles of literacy instruction that should be included when designing effective literacy instruction. These three principles are: explicit, multi-sensory, and systematic. Research has shown the effectiveness of each of these principles in any type of instruction, but I will focus on the impact on literacy here. While I have seen many well-intentioned literacy programs claim to have some combination of these principles, some tend to fall short. In today’s blog we will explore these principles in depth and compare what these principles look like in action compared to typical literacy practices. Explicit Have you ever purchased that perfect piece of furniture, only to find out when it arrives that you have to assemble it yourself? Someone has taken t

Literacy Assessments Within a Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) framework, decision making begins first with assessment. Through the assessments administered, problem solving teams are able to look at the overall “health” of a school by determining how many students are on target to meet grade level expectations versus how many students are not on target for success. This can help schools determine which elements of the core curriculum need to be supplemented or adjusted. Additional assessments can then be utilized to look at the overall performance of grade levels, classrooms, and individual students. There are multiple forms of assessment that are used as part of a comprehensive assessment system within a school, but the three most commonly used to make decisions as part of the problem solving process are universal screeners, diagnostic assessments, and progress monitoring. Universal Screeners A universal screener is designed to determine if a student is at-risk for reading dif