蜜桃影视

This is the final piece in a travel blog series on 蜜桃影视, , , took us on an adventure through classrooms across the country. See the full series here.

Last month鈥檚 release of biennial reading scores on the 鈥淣ation鈥檚 Report Card鈥� 鈥� and the likely overlooked, but monumentally important, 鈥� could not have provided a better bookend to our recently concluded tour of 鈥渒nowledge-rich schools.鈥�

We embarked on the in January with an essential question: What 鈥� beyond use of a high-quality, knowledge-building curriculum 鈥� defines a knowledge-rich school?鈥� We hope readers of the series have a better picture in their minds, and that you will be patient as we bring our travelers back together to compare notes. We think there are some common, and significant, themes.

In the meantime, we can鈥檛 help noting 鈥� on the heels of that very thoughtful discussion among some of the foremost authorities on reading instruction 鈥� how aligned their recommendations were with what we saw happening in these schools. We offer the following crosswalk:

鈥淭oo many of our children are not reading enough to become good readers,鈥� Carol Jago, vice chair of the National Assessment Governing Board, said in kicking off the panel discussion. 鈥淎s a society, we need to foster a culture that values reading.鈥�

Building a love of reading was on full display everywhere we went on the School Tour. It was particularly noteworthy at Greensboro, North Carolina鈥檚 , where, as my colleague David Liben says, 鈥渢hey do volume-of-reading on steroids.鈥�

An important clarion call emerging from the panel was the need to do away with the practice of assigning students to books at their 鈥渓evel.鈥�

鈥淎t best, this has no positive effects, and at worst, it鈥檚 been found to do real damage 鈥� to hold kids back,鈥� said Tim Shanahan, a longtime reading expert and professor emeritus at University of Illinois at Chicago.

(See our blogs about in Dayton, Ohio, and in Phoenix, Arizona, for great examples of exposing all students 鈥� every kid in the class! 鈥� to engaging, complex texts.)

Calling out the importance of such exposure for struggling readers in particular, Marilyn Adams, a visiting scholar at Brown University鈥檚 Department of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences, claimed that 鈥渢he widespread practice of giving students easier texts when they鈥檙e weaker readers serves to deny them the very language and information they need to catch up and move on.鈥�

Our visit to showed us how joyously students can be supported in building this knowledge with the help of the right curriculum.

鈥淥nce students are fluent decoders, the key determinant of comprehension is what a student already knows about a topic,鈥� said Daniel Willingham, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia. 鈥淸Our challenge is] to assure that every child is exposed to a curriculum that is knowledge-rich and appropriately sequenced.鈥�

There is no better model of intentional sequencing of knowledge than the well-known Core Knowledge Language Arts curriculum, whose model implementation we witnessed at in Riverside, California.

Public Prep CEO Ian Rowe underscored the importance of the 鈥渋ntellectual preparation鈥� of teachers.

鈥淲e can鈥檛 expect kids to do close reading of complex texts unless our teachers are doing so,鈥� he said, providing us with the perfect opportunity to sing the praises, yet again, of the great work being done in Louisiana. Together with the vast majority of educators throughout the state, teachers at near Lake Charles have 鈥渂ecome learners, too.鈥�

We look forward to sharing more about our insights in the months ahead!

Barbara Davidson is president of StandardsWork and runs the Knowledge Matters Campaign. A former classroom teacher of students with learning disabilities, she has worked for the past 30 years at the intersection of education policy and practice and has led a number of curriculum development efforts.

Did you use this article in your work?

We鈥檇 love to hear how 蜜桃影视鈥檚 reporting is helping educators, researchers, and policymakers.