When My Struggling Readers Won’t Read for School, but They Will for Squid Game

“Squid Game” is graphic and not meant for young audiences. This is not an endorsement of using the show as teaching material. As a teacher,…

My Toxic but Open Relationship With Education Activism

Transparent moment. There have been at least 50 separate occasions throughout my adult life where I’ve contemplated leaving this rollercoaster of a relationship I have…

I Teach Literacy as a Tool for Liberation

When I was a twenty-nine-and-a-half-year-old middle school English teacher, I bought my first house. I was also single. Normally my singledom isn’t important but then…

Bookmonsters Offers Helpful and Important Advice For Parents, But Here’s What It Won’t Tell You

There is no shortage of reading material on what parents can do to help their children learn to read. For some useful information, Natalie Wexler…

Science Is Finally Beating Covid. Now Let’s Give It a Chance to Help Kids Read.

Before the pandemic, approximately one million children, year in and year out, ended fourth grade at best barely able to read. It’s anyone’s guess what that number looks…

Let’s Stop Worrying and Lean on What Works in Early Reading

Should we worry about whether our earliest readers are learning to read, during the pandemic? Some point to concerning evidence of widening gaps in reading…

AOC Is Tutoring a First Grader

New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is highlighting an old, but never out of fashion, kind of public service: Tutoring kids.  The second-term congresswoman tweeted that…

You Don’t Just ‘Raise’ A Reader, You Have to Teach Kids to Read, Too

When I give presentations about dyslexia, I often illustrate how neurodiversity works by showing a chessboard. Some people can easily see all the patterns of…

How to Help Beginning Readers During the Pandemic

Before the pandemic, many American children struggled to read well. Now, the pandemic has thrown early elementary teachers a curve ball in teaching reading; they…

I Was There When Lucy Calkins Shifted Toward Cognitive Science

In October, national media reported on the remarkable shift toward phonics and away from 3-Cueing now under way for noted reading curriculum leader Lucy Calkins…