Literacy Instruction Archives - Center for Student Achievement Solutions

4 Ways to Empower Parents to Support Students’ Literacy Skills at Home

Although many schools are able to host some sort of digital learning sessions for students during COVID-19 related school closures, parents are increasingly taking on the role of teachers as they guide their children through remote learning. Unfortunately, parents often don’t know the best way to support their students’ vital learning skills, including literacy skills. Here are 4 strategies school leaders and teacher should use to empower parents during school closures: 1. Educate parents about the far-reaching importance of literacy…

3 components of effective literacy instruction for students struggling with reading skills

The importance of literacy across all school subjects is obvious: If students struggle to read textbooks, novels, worksheets, classroom assignments, and instructional materials, they can find themselves at a huge disadvantage in any classroom. As you teach students experiencing reading difficulties, keep in mind these three components of effective literacy instruction: 1. Effective literacy instruction teaches essential reading skills and strategies. Skills — According to findings by the National Reading Panel, essential reading skills students need to learn include: Phonemic awarenessPhonicsFluencyOral…

What is Assessment Literacy? Student Achievement and Teacher Effectiveness

Recently, while at an initial planning meeting to provide job embedded professional development, the leadership team shared their concerns about at risk students not making adequate growth to demonstrate proficiency on the upcoming state standardized test. When my team began to ask probing and clarifying questions to gain a better understanding of the school's approach to data collection and analysis, the leadership team collectively agreed that they would like for us to start with training focused on assessment literacy. After…

Building Reading Skills – One Step at a Time

Students who consistently struggle over time to learn to read, begin to develop a low self-esteem and some children might even say that they feel stupid. These feelings may be a direct result of being called "stupid" or "lazy" by their peers or others. There is plenty of research that supports no correlation between intelligence and the difficulties students experience when learning to read. Parents and educators should share with students that their reading struggles have nothing to do with…

Effective Reading Instruction: The Nuts and Bolts

How do you help students become great readers at an early age? To begin with, instill a love of reading with your children. More importantly though, there is so much more that goes into reading education. There are countless numbers of research findings, professional studies, and data that have been applied to the science of the best teaching programs. Ultimately, the National Reading Panel identified five components of comprehensive literacy instruction: Phonemic awareness (PA)—an awareness of and the ability to…