With the ‘literacy gap’ Widening, Educators Turn to the Science of Reading
- Updated
Akron teacher Janine DeTine started learning about the “science of reading” in 2019, right before the Covid-19 pandemic started.
She was intrigued by the research on how to teach children to read. Instead of having young readers look for cues when they come to an unfamiliar word and questioning if it makes sense, if it looks right, is there a clue in the picture, this approach gives children the tools to sound out and decode the word.
The research on reading also looked promising to Tarja Parssinen of the Western New York Education Alliance, which was formed during the pandemic.
“Our starting point, our focus, is really what has the biggest impact in academic outcomes,” she said. “As things normalized, the issue that stood out was literacy.”
A look at the 2019 New York State English Language Arts scores from 2019, the year before the pandemic started, shows there was room for improvement. Less than half
