Making the Case
Literacy is the Key to:
student achievement
a strong workforce
Arizona’s future
Every child can learn to read, and it is time to prioritize literacy instruction and strategies that are proven to work.
4x
Students who don’t read proficiently by third grade are 4x times more likely to leave high school without
a diploma.
Source: Annie E. Casey Foundation
Research shows that, with the right instruction, intervention and support, 95% of all children can learn to read.
“Just about all children can be taught to read and deserve no less from their teachers. Teachers, in turn, deserve no less than the knowledge, skills, and supported practice that will enable their teaching to succeed. There is no more important challenge for education to undertake.”
Dr. Louisa Moats
Teaching Reading is Rocket Science (2020): What Expert Teachers of Reading Should Know and Be Able to Do. Washington, DC: American Federation of Teachers.
The Science of Reading
The science of reading is a vast, evolving, interdisciplinary body of scientifically-based research about reading and issues related to reading and writing.
This research has been conducted over the last five decades across the world, and it is derived from thousands of studies conducted in multiple languages.
The science of reading informs how proficient reading and writing develop; why some have difficulty; and how we can most effectively assess and teach and, therefore, improve student outcomes through prevention of and intervention for reading difficulties.
Source: Science of Reading: Defining Guide. The Reading League (2022).
Adopted by Arizona Department of Education
What the Science of Reading is not:
- an ideology or philosophy
- a one-size-fits-all approach
- a program of instruction
- a single, specific component of instruction, such as phonics
Structured Literacy
Structured Literacy provides a clear path to guide classroom instruction in the science of reading.
Instruction is:
Explicit: in the essential components of reading that integrate listening, speaking, reading, and writing
Systematic: moving from simple to complex
Cumulative: new concepts are linked to previously learned
Diagnostic: differentiated based on individual student need
Skills Staircase to Reading
Accumulation of Foundational Skills
What can a proficient
reader do?
Informational Text
- Recognize how key details support the main idea.
- Recognize the relationship between (cause-and-effect, sequence) events, scientific concepts, or steps in a technical text.
- Explain the reason for an action and support answer with details from articles.
- Recognize a reason for an action that is implied, but not stated, by the text.
- Compare and contrast the most important points in two articles on the same topic.
Literary Text
- Infer motive and reasons that best explain a character's actions in a story.
- Determine the central message of a story or poem and explain how it is conveyed in key details in the text.
- Compare the feelings of a character in a poem to those of a character in a story using details from both texts.
“We need to shrink the gap between what we know and what we do. This is hard work. We have to be really dogged. And this is not just about schools.”
Nonie Lesaux
Dean, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Read On Arizona Literacy Roundtable, February 2025