How can we help older students who struggle to read?

Forbes writer Natalie Wexler interviewed Advanced Education Research and Development Fund (AERDF) Reading Reimagined Program Executive Director Rebecca Kockler about her answer to this question.

Many students above third or fourth grade struggle with reading. Evidence suggests a large contributing factor has been overlooked—and there may be a fairly simple way to address it.

One question that hasn’t gotten enough attention is whether students are able to make the transition from deciphering, or “decoding,” simple words to decoding the words with multiple syllables they encounter at higher grade levels.

The solution is to provide students with decoding instruction at higher grade levels—but not the same kind that the evidence indicates works in K-2. At those lower grade levels, children need to practice the phonics patterns they’ve learned using simple “decodable” texts (think, “The cat sat on the mat”).

For older students, Kockler says “you have to do this simultaneously with building knowledge” and other kinds of instruction—for example, morphology (understanding prefixes and suffixes). And, “you have to do it in the context of meaningful text.”

Read the rest of her words and how else Reading Reimagined’s work is focused on eradicating illiteracy.

 

Powerhouse panel of nation’s leading experts discussed the essential role of R&D in the future of education.  

Our PreK-12 public school systems need powerful, proven ways to improve student learning experiences. Various proposed solutions have emerged – from scaling high quality existing tools to increasing support for ethical platforms fueled by artificial intelligence. When it comes to student well-being, these and other approaches should all be on the table. While doing so, we must address a longstanding challenge: teaching and learning solutions developed today are often created without students’, educators’, or administrators’ involvement. As a result, these well-intended solutions are disconnected from current classrooms. And too often, new discoveries in student learning are siloed from classroom-ready solutions.

To accelerate progress, we need new ways to support and develop PreK-12 learners. Yet only a fraction of the federal budget is dedicated to research and development (R&D) in education.

“The moment we’re in really demands a new nimbleness and creativity in how we address some of our biggest challenges,” said Roberto Rodriguez, Assistant Secretary of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development for the U.S. Department of Education. “We need to marshal the will to invest more in R&D in education to move our country forward. We can’t afford to not do more R&D in education.” 

On May 2, Advanced Education Research and Development Fund (AERDF) gathered a powerhouse panel of R&D leaders to discuss this pivotal moment. Rodriguez delivered the opening keynote, then participated in a panel conversation with Auditi Chakravarty, CEO of AERDF; Dr. M. C. Brown II, Executive Director of the Payne Center for Social Justice at the Thurgood Marshall College Fund; and Joshua Elliott, Chief Scientist for Renaissance Philanthropy and Co-Director, Brains Initiative at Speculative Technologies. The panel was moderated by high school seniors Malcolm Fleming and Medina Alibasic.

Rodriguez said young people need to prepare for the demands of a new digital economy—while making up precious instructional time lost during the pandemic and overcoming social and emotional barriers to learning success.   

“All of this requires us to build an evidence base and to lean into more innovative ways to support student learning and success,” Rodriguez said. “We’re not going to address big, dynamic challenges unless we design differently.” 

Panelists had specific ideas about how R&D could reshape the future in bold and promising ways. They said:

R&D must be inclusive. 

“The conversation around R&D in education needs to be grounded in the needs, voices, perspectives, and experiences of those working in the field,” Rodriguez said. “There’s so much opportunity in bringing research, policy, and educational practice together.”  

Ideally, he said, educators, researchers, and developers will work hand-in-hand to create and scale new learning systems. And every student and school will have the resources to participate in innovation and evidence building. 

“We have to ask ourselves, ‘Who are we inviting to the table to participate in innovation?’ We can address these challenges if we’re more open and intentional about being inclusive,” Rodriguez said.

“We can’t do this work alone,” Chakravarty agreed. “It’s important to bridge the gaps between research and practical implementation.”

R&D can close long-standing equity and opportunity gaps. 

Brown sees this moment in education and R&D as an opportunity to “double down” and align, so every student receives high-quality, relevant learning. Educational breakthroughs can create a more inclusive system that can be scaled for all learners to succeed.

“There are those who are thriving and those who are not,” Brown said. “Shifts in American culture, machine learning, and our growing dependence on technology have made this a critical moment—not just for education, but for our national way of life.”

The nation needs R&D to uncover breakthrough transformations in learning and teaching and close long-standing inequities.

Advanced Inclusive R&D will accelerate progress for everyone.

All students benefit when R&D is grounded in the science of human learning and development and educational equity. 

“AERDF is deeply invested in developing solutions for Black and Latino learners and learners who are experiencing poverty—populations that are typically underserved by traditional education systems,” Chakravarty said. “But educational R&D yields benefits for every learner.”

“The goal is to generate breakthrough insights and technical capacities that change teaching and learning in multiple ways,” she said. “We need new and different knowledge tools, products, and ways of approaching teaching and assessing.”

“If we do that,” Rodriguez said, “we will see a more inclusive system that can be scaled for all learners to succeed.”

Technology has a starring role in the future of education—and not just in classrooms. 

“We have to take a more hands-on approach to innovation, education, and technology,” Rodriguez said. 

He wants to blend technology in new ways to increase learning outcomes—and to accelerate research and collaboration. Technology can change how we test, validate, and scale innovations in education. And it can connect the research community to leaders in classrooms, instructional design, and product development.

“Right now, we have small pockets of innovation here and there across the country. Let’s think about how we can scale that,” Rodriguez said. “What if we were able to embrace innovation in all corners of our country? We need to support knowledge building and knowledge sharing across our system in a bigger way.”

People are irreplaceable, even as technology proliferates.

Successful R&D programs need “fantastic people with big ideas, vision, and creativity,” Elliott said. 

People need space, resources, and the authority to do “big and ambitious things.” If everyone agrees your program will work, then you might not be thinking big enough to uncover transformational change, he suggested.

Elliott said it takes special leadership qualities to coordinate complex programs that advance the social good. Program leaders have to drive teams toward goals that are “just beyond impossible.” 

“It’s massively challenging because every institution has completely different incentive profiles, motivations, time scales, and limitations. It’s also extremely rewarding,” Elliott said. “We have to stay focused on the people, the soft skills, and the ambition.”

Educational R&D is a national imperative. 

One could argue that all our national priorities are dependent on how well we educate students, starting right now. 

“Innovation has always been at the core of our competitiveness and the core of our potential as a country,” Rodriguez said. “We need to put innovation at the core of education to get ahead. We can’t afford to be left behind.

“We have to take a more hands-on approach to innovation, education, and technology,” he said.

Watch the recording of the conversation below.

 

 

An opportunity to practice Advanced Inclusive R&D.

The panel concluded with an open invitation to work with AERDF and across the industry to pursue transformative ideas for PreK-12 education. 

AERDF is currently accepting applications for a program Executive Director to lead its next initiative, which launches in 2025. The program Executive Director will design and lead an Advanced Inclusive R&D project to unlock breakthrough capabilities in PreK-12 teaching, learning, or assessment systems. 

Candidates should submit an intent to apply by May 23. Select candidates will be asked to submit a recorded interview and concept paper that explains their proposal.

A full selection committee will review the applications and proposals. Eight finalists will be offered a paid, part-time fellowship to refine their ideas into an actionable program. During that time, they’ll receive personalized support and feedback from AERDF, funders, and potential partners. 

At the end of the fellowship, one candidate will be offered the program Executive Director position to pursue their audacious idea. 

The full job description, application guide, and applicant resources are available at https://aerdf.org/prove-the-impossible/. 

Chris Liang-Vergara and Kyla Haimovitz are hosting office hours throughout May to answer questions about the position and the application process. Scheduling instructions are in the FAQ.

Watch the replay of the question and answer session about the program Executive Director application process below.

 

In this newly developed role, Sasha will lead AERDF’s growing portfolio of Advanced Inclusive R&D programs — including existing programs EF+Math, Assessment for Good, and Reading Reimagined; as well as future programs AERDF will launch over the next year and beyond. As CPSI, Sasha will provide strategic vision and leadership for all AERDF programs, enhance and codify rigorous program evaluation efforts, and strengthen our technical and R&D infrastructure. He will also oversee a team of research and technology experts across our programs. These experts maintain an evolving infrastructure that safeguards and enables ethical use of data as AERDF programs pursue their R&D goals. 

 

Sasha brings an entrepreneurial spirit and a track record of innovation to his work. He is passionate about leveraging education’s transformative power and driving positive change for districts, schools, students, and communities. Previously, Sasha served as president of Equal Opportunity Schools, where he spent more than 11 years in various roles including Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Program Officer. Before his tenure at EOS, Sasha dedicated himself to grassroots advocacy, organizing students and families for social change through The Institute for Community Leadership. He was also a founding member of the Jack Hunter O’Dell Nonviolence Leadership Education Center. 

 

“AERDF is entering an exciting phase with our growing portfolio of programs now 3 to 5 years into their work at a time when the education R&D ecosystem is maturing and eager to learn, collaborate, and contribute to the field,” said AERDF Chief Executive Officer Auditi Chakravarty. “Sasha’s leadership offers a rich blend of experiences and expertise to build on our progress of the last several years, including a deep commitment to equity-centered school partnerships, a fierce technical acumen, and most importantly, a vision for innovation and how education systems can be reinvented through a deliberate, R&D-driven approach. I am excited to welcome Sasha on board.”

 

Look out for reflections from Sasha as he’s diving into the role and learning in the coming weeks!

“The best assessment processes allow a learner to be measured alongside milestones of their own developmental trajectory, not in comparison to arbitrary—and potentially outdated—standards that may or may not reflect their unique, lived experiences.”

Advanced Education Research and Development Fund Program’s Assessment for Good Executive Director Dr. Temple Lovelace recently published a District Administration article on the future of assessment.

This short illustration by Rio Holaday, a Culture of Health leader with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, captures a few key moments of our work.

 

Read the article here

From a solution to repurpose cold plasma to treat seeds to 3D printed living seawalls, the eighth annual awards honor new and inspiring solutions to the most daunting challenges of today. 

 

OAKLAND, Calif., May 14, 2024 — Fast Company announced and recognized The Advanced Education Research and Development Fund (AERDF), the first nonprofit, Advanced Inclusive Research and Development (R&D) organization focused on scientific discovery and invention in PreK-12 education, as one of this year’s World Changing Ideas. From some of the world’s most creative minds and pioneering organizations seeking to disrupt the status quo, the solutions cover everything from renewable energy storage and waste in the fashion industry to a building made entirely from recycled concrete and a fridge that’s solar-powered and designed to run off the grid.  

 

Fast Company honored AERDF’s cutting-edge approach to conducting education R&D. AERDF is redefining education research and innovation while propelling the design of scalable, breakthrough education solutions that address long-standing PreK-12 teaching and learning challenges. Inspired by the US federal government’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) initiatives that already exist in defense, health, and energy, AERDF grounds its approach in Advanced R&D and the science of learning. Through focused, shorter cycles of innovation with clear, ambitious goals, AERDF brings together learners, educators, researchers, developers, and others from the beginning and throughout this process to find solutions to pressing education challenges. This approach provides the opportunity for educators, learners, and caregivers who are most impacted day to day in and outside of classrooms to co-create the best solutions to support students. 

 

This year’s World Changing Ideas Awards showcase 50 winners, 127 finalists, and 172 honorable mentions—with health, education, energy, and AI among the most popular categories. A panel of Fast Company editors and reporters selected winners from a pool of more than 1,300 entries across climate, social justice, wellness, politics, technology, corporate social responsibility, and more. Several new categories were added this year, including beauty and fashion, health products, health services, materials, and science and technology. The 2024 awards feature entries from across the globe, including the Republic of Korea, Brazil, and Madagascar.

 

“We are deeply invested in developing solutions for and with Black and Latino learners and learners from households experiencing poverty, populations that have so often been underserved by our education systems,” says Auditi Chakravarty, Chief Executive Officer of AERDF. “This fuels our drive to illuminate and share innovative PreK-12 solutions, encompassing new insights, technologies, programs, and products designed to transform each learner’s learning trajectory. We are appreciative of Fast Company for recognizing our efforts and honored to be part of a global community of notable organizations dedicated to creating positive, multigenerational change.”

 

“I was struck this year by the global sweep of the honorees,” says Fast Company Editor-in-Chief Brendan Vaughan. “It’s endlessly inspiring to see how the world is coming together to devise inventive solutions to our most challenging problems. We need ideas from everywhere, and this year’s World Changing Ideas Awards are an extraordinary encapsulation of the innovation and creativity that is so abundant around the globe.”

 

ABOUT AERDF: Advanced Education Research & Development Fund (AERDF, sounds like air-diff) is a national nonprofit organization launched in 2021 that advances scientific discovery & inventions that further learners’ brilliance and transform their PreK-12 futures. AERDF’s ambitious three-to-five-year initiatives (known as programs), funded with budgets up to $25 million, address major teaching and learning challenges and opportunities the public and private sector have historically ignored for Black and Latino learners and learners experiencing poverty in the United States.

AERDF programs build on existing community-driven evidence and expertise, as well as learning sciences, to translate fundamental insights into usable knowledge, useful practices, equitable approaches and transformative tools for education practitioners and students.

Since AERDF’s launch, its programs – currently focused on math, formative assessment, and reading – have engaged more than 20,000 students.

Learn more about AERDF and our programs at https://aerdf.org. 

 

ABOUT THE WORLD CHANGING IDEAS AWARDS: World Changing Ideas is one of Fast Company’s major annual awards programs and is focused on social good, seeking to elevate finished products and bold concepts that make the world better. Judges choose winners, finalists, and honorable mentions based on feasibility and the potential for impact. With the goals of awarding ingenuity and fostering innovation, Fast Company draws attention to ideas with great potential and helps them expand their reach to inspire more people to work on solving the problems that affect us all.

 

ABOUT FAST COMPANY: Fast Company is the only media brand fully dedicated to the vital intersection of business, innovation, and design, engaging the most influential leaders, companies, and thinkers on the future of business. Headquartered in New York City, Fast Company is published by Mansueto Ventures LLC, along with our sister publication Inc., and can be found online at www.fastcompany.com.

 

For media inquiries, please contact:

Marvin Smith, Chief of Public Affairs, msmith@aerdf.org
Yasmene Mumby, Communications Director, ymumby@aerdf.org

OAKLAND, Calif., April 11, 2024 – The Advanced Education Research and Development Fund (AERDF), the first nonprofit, Advanced Inclusive R&D organization focused on scientific discovery and invention in PreK-12 education, today announced a major new initiative to improve the future of learning for Black and Latino students and those experiencing poverty.

The organization is hosting an open call for innovators to shape and lead AERDF’s new, five-year program with an up-to-$25 million budget, beginning in 2025. Applicants are invited to outline the “opportunity area” their program would address. AERDF is particularly interested in proposals for the following Opportunity Areas:

• Relevant, High Quality Learning: A growing number of students are disengaged from school. What if all learners experience relevant, high quality learning every day?
• Multilingualism: Multilingual education raises achievement for all learners. What if all learners became multilingual?
• Assessment: PreK-12 assessments measure inequities. What if assessment eliminated inequity?

 

Applications are open now and close May 31, 2024. Interested candidates must start their application by April 30, 2024.

 

In June, AERDF will be selecting eight finalists to participate in AERDF’s AdvancED Fellowship: a paid, part-time, three-month fellowship beginning on July 19, 2024 to develop their idea into a potential new program. All AdvancED Fellows and the next Program Executive Director will benefit from the support and resources of the AERDF team—along with a broad community of partners and collaborators, including The Brains Initiative, The Dr. N. Joyce Payne Center for Social Justice, Education Endowment Foundation, Intentional Futures, The Marshall Memo, The Open System Institute, Transcend, Watershed Advisors, and Wisewire.

The AdvancED Fellowship will end in the selection and hiring of AERDF’s next Program Executive Director and the creation of a new program to advance their vision with an up to $25M program budget.

“We need to reimagine our current systems and solutions in order to create meaningful change for Black and Latino students and those experiencing poverty,” says Auditi Chakravarty, Chief Executive Officer of AERDF. “We’re looking for a curious, visionary leader who understands the long-standing challenges in US PreK-12 education who is ready to bring together diverse communities to pursue courageous solutions that produce strong outcomes for all learners.”

“The new program’s Executive Director doesn’t need to have a PhD. They don’t need to have the perfect resume, the right connections, or access to resources. They need a visionary mind, an ability to lead across sectors, and an insatiable drive to effect multigenerational change,” added Chakravarty.

 

About AERDF

 

Advanced Education Research & Development Fund (AERDF, sounds like air-diff) is a national nonprofit organization launched in 2021 that advances scientific discovery & inventions that further learners’ brilliance and transform their PreK-12 futures. AERDF’s ambitious three-to-five-year initiatives (known as programs), funded with budgets up to $25 million, address major teaching and learning challenges and opportunities the public and private sector have historically ignored for Black and Latino learners and learners experiencing poverty in the United States.

AERDF programs build on existing community-driven evidence and expertise, as well as learning sciences, to translate fundamental insights into usable knowledge, useful practices, equitable approaches and transformative tools for education practitioners and students.

Since AERDF’s launch, its programs – currently focused on math, formative assessment, and reading – have engaged more than 20,000 students.

 

Learn more about AERDF and our programs at https://aerdf.org

 

For media inquiries, please contact:

Marvin Smith, Chief of Public Affairs, msmith@aerdf.org
Yasmene Mumby, Communications Director, ymumby@aerdf.org

Our work at AERDF centers on building innovative educational solutions to support the brilliance of Black and Latino students and students experiencing poverty.

At the center of that work, of course, are the learners themselves — students from across the country who are involved in, or will be involved in, research and development (R&D) with AERDF.

Working with these students directly is a privilege, and it’s one we don’t take lightly. Our teams have worked diligently to create R&D processes that involve students, caregivers, and educators collaboratively while mitigating their risks of participation.

We’ve also taken exhaustive steps to safeguard the student data we’re collecting from potential hacking or misuse. We firmly believe that any data worth collecting is worth protecting. 

As such, we treat U.S. regulatory data protection standards as a baseline — and then we go above and beyond them to mitigate any risk that an individual learner’s reading-ability data or social-emotional learning feedback, for example, falls into the wrong hands.

At AERDF, we view data protection not as a barrier to innovation, but rather as a framework that unlocks and deeply informs our investigative discoveries.

In our work, we also strive to acknowledge that, historically, research on Black and Latino populations has at times been unethical or undertaken without proper consent. The Tuskegee syphilis experiments and studies using Henrietta Lacks’ cells without her family’s awareness are examples of this kind of research misuse.

Instead, we actively and openly engage with study participants and protect their shared data throughout our research process in order to prevent repeating past harms.

 

Safeguarding data through a multidimensional approach

 

AERDF’s comprehensive data privacy protocols are driven by a multidisciplinary team with expertise in all facets of data protection. This allows us to tackle the wide-ranging ethical, technical, and legal considerations involved when collecting personal information about real people.

In addition to leveraging my own expertise as a privacy attorney, our data protection team includes cloud architects, data security experts, IRB (Institutional Review Board) specialists, generative AI experts, and student privacy consultants.

This multidimensional approach allows us to do what many larger, for-profit organizations have struggled to do: namely, get the many diverse cogs of R&D to work together effectively and cohesively.

In a traditional R&D framework, lawyers and tech team members often aren’t sure how to work collaboratively with one another, given their different backgrounds and even differing jargon. In these environments, for example, an attorney may struggle to explain privacy demands for a particular data collection platform if tech team members have previously worked on platforms that didn’t require them.  

But at AERDF, we have broken down such stagnating silos of expertise to build a single, multidimensional R&D team — one in which everyone knows the hows and whys behind what everyone else is doing. By keeping information flowing among all our R&D team members, we’re able to create an R&D process that’s innovative and inclusive, while mitigating involvement risk for participants.

From a technology perspective, we’ve built a comprehensive, deeply protected cloud-based platform where all our study data lives and where new prototypes can be safely developed. Every AERDF researcher has access to this platform to ensure their assessed data receives cutting-edge security protections.

Together, our team is also working to plan for and stay ahead of new regulations that may reshape data collection best practices in the future. Even before the FTC announced new potential COPPA rules, for example, we were already working on ways to keep identifiable student data out of searchable algorithms.

All this work has one goal: ensuring that the learner and educator data empowering our work remains free from misuse or unwarranted distribution in an era when student data has become a key target of hackers.

 

Privacy by design

 

Data protection informs every stage of the work we do at AERDF, from early project inception and logistics ideation to best practices for ethical data collection, storage, and — once the project ends — data de-identification or disposal.

Put another way, AERDF projects are designed for privacy optimization from the outset, and privacy remains a top priority at every stage as projects prepare for launch and implementation. Here, privacy is not an end-stage afterthought but rather a driving force of innovation.

In their earliest stages, all AERDF research projects are reviewed by Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) that specialize in protocols for safe data collection and informed consent from participants. These IRBs are often housed at universities affiliated with our researchers or at external, independent partnering organizations.

Before projects launch, our investigators work diligently to provide study participants with every detail they may need — including the research hypothesis and what data we will be collecting, how, and why — so that educators, parents, and students can answer knowledgeably and with clear autonomy when they decide whether or not to participate in our studies.

Additionally, before any data is collected, each project goes through internal review by AERDF’s Research and Development and Ethics Committee. This review process asks investigators to, among other things, consider their own biases about Black and Latino students that could inadvertently or improperly affect their research protocols or study findings.

As part of project review, investigators also receive a data risk matrix, which encourages them to report whether participants might face emotional, social, or physical harm from participating in an AERDF-sponsored study — and instructions for ways they might mitigate that risk.

Finally, before any project officially starts, AERDF enters into formal, written data-sharing agreements with school district administrators, learners, caregivers, and educators to ensure all involved parties are informed and feel comfortable about what data is to be collected and how it will be used.

To some, this may sound like a cumbersome or overly meticulous process, but we feel it actually speeds up our work. Through these extensive protocols, we can reduce the risk of mid-project research shutdowns due to data breaches, insufficient consent acquisitions, or other ethical concerns.

 

Pursuing informed and Inclusive R&D

 

AERDF is committed to ethical and Inclusive R&D. Providing participants with ample information to enable informed consent and ensuring their information is protected, once shared, are key steps in our pursuit of that goal.

Above all, we want our study participants to feel confident that the data they’re sharing will be safeguarded and that their voices and insights will be heard and valued.

Ethical R&D understands that Black and Latino communities and all communities experiencing poverty know and understand the problems their neighborhoods and schools are facing. They don’t need an outsider to “identify” or “discover” them. What they need is someone willing to listen and support possible solutions.

That’s why our work aims to center and engage the experiences and rich knowledge base of the communities at the heart of our work. We endeavor to provide these students — and their caregivers and teachers — meaningful opportunities to participate in R&D with us. After all, it’s their lived experiences that hold answers to the questions we’re pursuing.

With their help, we’ll achieve our goal of providing every student with the educational support they need to succeed.

 

By Asia Parks, Ethics and Privacy Counsel for AERDF

Nature Reviews Psychology spoke with Research & Development Scientist Dr. Lauren D. Kendall Brooks about her journey from a postdoctoral research associate to a research scientist with Assessment For Good.

“My main charge is keeping the science strong in our programme: making sure the decisions that we make are scientifically solid and pushing the field forward…Our stakeholders are Black and/or Latinx students ages 8–13 years, educators, and caregivers. I wanted to be able to directly impact communities in need in a timely manner.”

We are proud of Research and Development Scientist Lauren D. Kendall Brooks, PhD for Assessment for Good, one of our Inclusive R&D programs at Advanced Education Research and Development Fund (AERDF). Thank you to Teresa Schubert at Nature Reviews Psychology for interviewing Dr. Kendall Brooks about her journey from the lab to a career with us in education R&D.

Read the rest of the article here

The majority of American middle and high school students aren’t reading at grade level.

Only about one third of U.S. students read at grade level, according to data from the 2022 NAEP Reading Assessment. The likelihood of reading proficiently is even lower for students of color or those experiencing poverty.

While these trends aren’t new, there’s growing awareness among teachers, administrators, and literacy specialists that it’s time to face this problem head on with innovative, effective solutions—both for students’ proficiency in their classrooms and to establish pathways for their future success.

Recently, the Achievement Network (ANet), Reading Reimagined, an Inclusive R&D program with AERDF, and ROAR (The Rapid Online Assessment of Reading), a pilot program from Stanford University, joined forces to host a webinar about their partnership in addressing what’s working and what’s not in U.S. reading education, particularly for students in middle and high school.

Mary Schreuder, ANet’s director of secondary literacy, moderated the hour-long conversation featuring insights from five panelists:

• Rebecca Sutherland, associate director of research, AERDF Reading Reimagined
• Carrie Townley-Flores, director of research and partnerships, Stanford ROAR
• Xia Gauthier, partnership manager, ANet
• Colleen Kelly, director of school support, ANet
• Stephanie Sluyter Charbonnet, director of school support, ANet

Drawing on their experiences as classroom teachers and curriculum support specialists—along with findings from ongoing ANET, Reading Reimagined, and ROAR literacy pilot programming—each participant shared realistic targets that could help improve reading education for students in grades 4 through 12.

Interventions to improve reading education are, of course, complex, requiring long-term development and strategic integration and testing. As a means of introducing this work, the team discussed several baseline strategies that should inform schools’ intervention approaches.

____________________

1. Foundational reading education should extend beyond primary classrooms

Most students in grades K-3 receive active support with beginning reading skills, including phonics instruction. By grade 4, the expectation is that students know how to read—and lessons shift to demand using literacy skills to read to learn in their various subjects, whether math, social studies, language arts, or science. 

Evidence from NAEP and other literacy assessments suggest this approach may not be working. Many students are leaving primary grades without mastery of foundational literacy skills needed to decode and comprehend complex words and sentences. 

“Basic phonics instructions only takes students so far,” said Sutherland. “They need ongoing, explicit support to be able to engage with texts that involve more technical terms. But schools are not currently set up to provide that support to students.”

2. Schools need data to accurately measure students’ foundational reading gaps

Most schools rely on annual summative  achievement tests to measure older students’ reading comprehension skills. Tests of foundational skills, such as phonological awareness, are typically only used in early elementary grades.

Yet having access to this data for older students is critical if schools hope to understand the scope and root causes of their students’ grade-level reading difficulties. These insights can also be used to identify individual students in need of targeted reading support—and to establish whether small-group or whole-classroom interventions would be most effective.

Without data, “teachers in upper grades in elementary and middle school don’t have any insight into where their students’ learning needs lie when it comes to foundational skills,” Sutherland explained.

This is where innovative assessments such as ROAR come in. The 10-minute test, now in pilot stage, allows teachers to quickly and effectively assess their students’ reading decoding skills.

“When we talk with school leaders, we ask, ‘How big is the [reading skills] problem in your school?’ And nobody knows, because these assessments don’t exist yet,” said Townley-Flores. “With ROAR, we’re trying to fill that gap. It’s an open-access assessment that is automated and easily accessible to all schools.”

3. Teachers require support to reframe their reading education strategies

To get more students to grade-level reading proficiency, schools need to revisit the way reading is being taught, panelists advised.

“We need to go beyond comprehension and go back to those basic foundational reading skills and change how we’re teaching those,” Townley-Flores said.

“Making sure that everyone can actually decode is a necessary first step,” Sutherland agreed. “There is a lot of work to be done there.”

“There are also opportunities to introduce fluency routines into whole group instruction,” Charbonnet added.

Yet implementing these pedagogy shifts will require concerted time and effort. Teachers will need support to learn new reading and fluency instruction techniques before sharing them with their students.

Many teachers “have not had training on what foundational skills look and sound like in middle and high school,” said Kelly. “We have to be sure that we are building in the time, structure, and space for them to be able to learn [new teaching strategies]. They need to be excited and see the ‘why’ behind all of it.”

4. Older students deserve opportunities to co-direct their learning

Many foundational literacy intervention materials are geared toward very young readers. Schools should search for curricula that better fit middle and high schoolers’ needs and interests when developing new reading support programs for these students.

Additionally, teachers and administrators should recognize that traditional patterns of “pulling” students from class for supplementary support could affect older students’ self-esteem.

Schools should build learning models that “take into consideration a student’s own self-efficacy and confidence around foundational skills,” Gauthier said. “A challenge is finding an approach that honors students’ social and emotional skills while also addressing the opportunity to significantly improve their foundational [reading] skills.”

“When you set up these structures, it’s really important to consider the dignity piece of this, especially for older kids,” Kelly agreed. “Co-construct [intervention plans] with the students. Ask, ‘Do you want to be pulled out in this period, or come before or after school?’ There are lots of ways to [offer supports], including having every single student in school have an intervention class, since we’re all in progress and learning.”

Finally, teachers should work to help older students find the joy and value in reading—and to reaffirm their identity as “readers.”

“Instruction for older struggling readers has to include building up a ‘reader’s identity,’ building value around the purpose of reading, and then fostering their interest in reading,” Kelly said. “There needs to be a shift that allows struggling readers to build up their belief in themselves in order to get the support they need.”

____________________

Throughout the discussion, panelists shared that teachers and administrators are eager to integrate effective literacy education for older students, but figuring out how to get started can be challenging. 

Teachers “understand what’s at stake for students, especially in high school, if they graduate not being able to read,” said Charbonnet. “There is a real sense of urgency around this topic, but there are so many competing priorities in schools—and finding time to respond to this need can be difficult.”

Given these challenges, schools working with ANet, ROAR, and Reading Reimagined pilot programming have focused on finding first-step initiatives that are both “feasible and impactful,” Charbonnet said.

“We’re hoping the data that comes out of [pilot programs] helps build momentum,” she added. “So that we can say, ‘Here’s what we did. And it truly supported and helped students grow.’”

This EF+Math insights report shares promising preliminary findings from EF+Math’s portfolio of 10 teams, each made up of students, educators, researchers, and developers who collaborate through a unique Inclusive Research and Development (R&D) approach. EF+Math teams are working to understand the promise of research-informed mathematics learning approaches in grades 3–8, designed and developed with students and teachers, that combine executive function (EF) skills, conceptual understanding and multi-step problem solving, and equity.

These teams are in the third year of a five-year R&D cycle to design, develop, implement, research, and evaluate mathematics learning approaches and new research tools. Preliminary data suggest many of our approaches are improving mathematics learning, and we are simultaneously increasing knowledge of the relationship between mathematics learning and EF skills.

The report highlights that when educators and students are involved at every stage of the research and development process, learning approaches become more relevant to the classroom, are designed for straightforward implementation, and are adaptable to different contexts. By centering equity and inclusion from the beginning of the R&D process, we can shift towards a culture of equity and create a transformative ripple effect across the educational community.