Literacy Sets Life Trajectory
95% of us can learn to read well, but how we’re taught (instruction method) impacts achievement more than IQ, hard work, or privilege. 65% of us will not read well without an instructional protocol known as Structured Literacy. It’s not a brand or product. It’s a complex series of content and techniques that impart the skills required for reading. Teachers need significant training to master it, and Washington has one accredited teacher certification program. We bring instruction and training directly to communities farthest from justice, because our kids can’t wait.
The Opportunity
95% of us can learn to read well, proven by decades of cognitive research and role models around the country. Yet in Washington, only 50% of all students, and 31% of low-income, Black, and Latino students, read at grade level. Why?
Instruction method matters more than IQ, hard work, or privilege. - We need to rewire our brains to read. 90% of us need some degree of instruction, but it is critical for 65%.
- New readers need
years of explicit, sequential instruction to build new, efficient neural circuits. Instruction starts with tools to sound out words based on linguistic patterns. - Explicit, skill-based instruction was stripped out of teacher training 50 years ago with the onset of whole language and balanced literacy.
- Teaching reading effectively involves at least 150+ hours of training and coaching. Teachers need to learn a large volume of new, non-intuitive content and techniques.
- Sounding out words is imperative because the brain needs to ‘hear’ each word and process it as oral language before we register its meaning. That process becomes instantaneous and subconscious with time and practice, but it does not stop, even for advanced readers. For more on that topic, try Reading in the Brain by Dr. Stanislas Dehaene.
Instruction is Key
The Science of Reading is a body of research that has honed effective literacy practices for over 75 years. Structured Literacy is the approach to teaching reading based on that research. It includes explicit, sequential, and mastery-focused instruction. The foundations are oral language, background knowledge, and decoding strategies based on linguistic principles far beyond phonics.
Programs and Results
With diagnostic, individualized instruction, students advanced 10-13 times faster than they did at school.
Our Work
- Partner with community programs to help struggling readers right away.
- Diversify and expand the teaching pool trained in Structured Literacy.
- Support schools and teachers to implement Structured Literacy with fidelity.
- Raise awareness & explain the facts.
- Provide public resources.
- Build Washington’s capacity to train and support all public school teachers so they can help 95% of their students reach grade level and beyond.
Structured Literacy Works for All of Us. It’s Imperative for Most of Us.
This Kindergartener and her teacher transformed her literacy skills between October (left) and May (right) in a classroom of 18 students.
This Kindergarten teacher taught reading for 17 years before studying Structured Literacy and changing her approach. Now 100% of her students end the year at grade level, instead of just one or two.
In 2015, the Bethlehem Area School District in Pennslyvania began systematically retraining, coaching, and supporting classroom teachers as they transformed literacy instruction from Balanced Literacy to Structured Literacy. It was not easy. Teachers spent 100+ hours in class over the first year, plus significant 1:1, confidential coaching time in their classrooms. They changed every single thing about their literacy program.
The results are stunning. Between 2015 – 2019:
* Proficiency went from 49% to 88%.
* The proficiency gap went from 51 points to 8.
* They broke the link between wealth and reading.
Courtesy of the Bethlehem Area School District. For more information about this incredible district, see the Media page available through the Resource tab.