Informative Links
Effective Reading Instruction is a Human Right
Summary of OHRC findings on inadequate reading instruction – The Ontario Human Rights Commission declared access to effective reading instruction to be a basic human right and determined that schools in the province were not adequately meeting the needs of students. Other provinces are also failing students in the same ways! Read a summary of the OHRC findings here including recommendations such as: early screening of all students as early as Kindergarten to identify reading struggles, immediate evidence-based interventions, removal of “balanced literacy” and “three-cueing strategies” in schools, systematic and direct evidence-based instruction for all students, and training for teachers in the body of research known as “The Science of Reading.”
Helpful Links for Parents
Decoding Tips for Parents: 5 Common Errors and How to Help – Advice for reading with your child and how to address errors they might make.
Seven Sins of Spelling – Does your child bring home rainbow spelling homework?
Spelling Activities: From Toxic to Helpful – Better strategies to help your child practice spelling words.
The Need for Change in Reading Instruction
PODCAST – Sold a Story: How teaching kids to read went so wrong – Is your school using Reading Recovery, Leveled Literacy Intervention (LLI), Fountas and Pinnell, or Lucy Calkins products? (2022)
At a Loss For Words: How a flawed idea is teaching millions of kids to be poor readers Are your children bringing home leveled books and cute “reading strategies” such as Skippy Dolphin and Lips the Fish? Are they truly reading? Or being taught to guess? (2019)
Hard Words: Why aren’t kids being taught to read? (2018)
Hard to Read: How American Schools Fail Kids with Dyslexia (2017)
Influential authors Fountas and Pinnell stand behind disproven reading theory (2021)
10 Reasons the Three-Cueing system (MSV) Is Ineffective
Clarity about Fountas and Pinnell
Teaching Reading to African American Children – Linguistic Variety and Dialects: Difference, not Error
Understanding the Science of Reading
The Role of Orthographic Mapping in Learning to Read
Why Schools Should Use Structured Literacy
The Science of Reading: Evidence for a New Era of Reading Instruction