Shanahan on Literacy

Many teachers wonder if decodable texts undermine kids' interests in and love of reading. This podcast explores that idea and explains the sources of kids' interests in reading and how adults may see things differently than children do.

There are scads of evaluative criteria for examining reading and English Language Arts programs aimed at elementary school kids. But what about ELA programs for use in the middle and high school? Wouldn't it be just as good for teachers to teach novels at these grades -- rather than adopting a program. This podcast provides "look fors" for any ELA program aimed at the upper grades -- whether a commercial product to be purchased or local program to be crafted.

The latest PISA scores reveal that reading achievement is still dropping for many populations of 15 year olds. This podcast explores what -- if anything -- can be done to reverse these ongoing aftereffects of the 2020 pandemic (yep, it is still with us).

This podcast explores the role that morphology instruction should play in the teaching of reading -- both in terms of decoding and comprehension -- and provides practical, research-based recommendations for how that teaching should proceed.

These days any reading program that doesn't include decodables will have a lot of trouble doing business. Research isn't particularly supportive of the use of these simplified beginning reading text, but it seems reasonable to provide kids with practice of what we teach and we should be teaching decoding. Unfortunately, most decodables provide a weak kind of practice. This essay demonstrates how this could be improved upon.

The Common Core emphasized the teaching of close reading. Many states have revised those standards. Should close reading still have a place in your classroom in reading comprehension instruction? This podcast explores what close reading is and why it still should matter as part of comprehension instruction.

In the previous episode, the research on how much we are reading these days was reviewed. This episode explores the reasons for the decline in reading and what can be done to change its direction. The solution will surprise you.

Recently, a number of reports have revealed that Americans (and Brits and Australians) aren't reading for pleasure as much as they used to. This has led some to conclude that we are in big trouble. Is that the case? What does the decline in reading mean? This is the first of a two parter -- the follow up podcast will explore possible solutions.

We talk a lot about what to teach in reading, but not so much about how much reading we should teach. This episode aims at making sense of the amounts of time needed to teach reading as effectively as our society requires.

This podcast explores how reading fluency is best improved in the upper grades -- explaining when instruction should shift to Tier 2 settings and the methods and texts best used for teaching.