Photo: Alessandra Hartkopf for Strategies for Children

As someone who has been writing for a long time, I’m well aware how hard it is to write about something you only partially understand. Now, Education Week reports, there’s an increased focus on teaching writing as a way to improve students’ reading skills. The trend also responds to concerns among employers and college professors about young people’s writing and analytical skills. The article is part of Ed Week’s Rethinking Literacy series. (See “Writing Undergoes Renaissance in Curricula.”)

“The shift is still nascent, but people in the field are taking notice. It marks a departure from recent practice, which often includes little or no explicit writing instruction and only a modest amount of writing, typically in the form of stories, short summaries, or personal reflections, rather than essays or research projects on topics being studied,” Ed Week reports.

“On a literacy landscape that rarely features explicit writing instruction, and where the writing that does take place is often unconnected to reading, experts say, these kinds of projects are unusual for the way they connect writing and reading. Attention to reading has persistently been high, they say, but a focus on writing has waxed and waned in the past few decades. ‘Now we’re seeing a lot more attention to the idea that writing about a text can improve reading about that text,’ said literacy expert Timothy Shanahan, the chairman of the department of curriculum and instruction at the University of Illinois at Chicago.”

In one first grade class in Vermont, for instance, children read “The Lorax” by Dr. Seuss, first for fun and finally to hunt for ways the protagonist protects the earth. They write a paragraph about the story’s theme supported by these examples.

Research supports the emphasis on writing.  “’Writing to Read,’ a 2010 meta-analysis of 93 studies of writing interventions, found that writing had consistently positive effects on students’ reading skills and comprehension,” Ed Week reports. “Writing about what they read was particularly helpful to students’ comprehension, but so were taking notes on what they read, answering questions about it, and simply writing more.”

Read Full Post »

Photo: Kate Samp for Strategies for Children

My postings about the 16 one-page memos on literacy from Harvard’s Lead for Literacy series is coming to an end, with this item on Program Design for Impact,

“Educators devote much time and effort to literacy supports and programs that reach many children, but we aren’t making a difference in literacy rates,” the memo states. “We need to focus on programs that result in a measurable impact on children’s literacy, and then find a way to increase the number of children served by those programs.”

Too often, the memo notes, programs define success by the number of children served. Instead, it advises, programs should find “the right dosage – amount of time on task needed to improve literacy skills.” Programs should be evaluated to determine their effectiveness and only then brought to scale. It suggests three guiding questions:

• Implementation characteristics: Are we delivering the program or support?
• Key ingredients: What’s working?
• Sufficient dosage: Are we doing enough to change behaviors, prevent difficulties and improve literacy rates?

The final keys to successful program design are ongoing professional development and ongoing monitoring of quality. “Even a model program quickly loses its impact if not implemented correctly,” the memo warns.

The memos are an initiative of the Language Diversity and Literacy Development Research Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The research group is headed by Professor Nonie Lesaux, author of “Turning the Page: Refocusing Massachusetts for Reading Success,” which we commissioned in 2010 and which informs the memos.

Read Full Post »