Literacy and access to quality literacy instruction and resources is an issue of equity and an issue of social justice. Being literate represents the difference between inclusion in and exclusion from society. Examining how literacy experiences are being provided to children is critical to fulfilling this basic human right. This guide--written…

We will never teach all our students to read if we do not teach our most at-risk students to read. Another way to say this is: "Getting to 100% requires going through the bottom 20%." Teaching all students to read requires a school level system for early identification of at-risk students and a school level system for providing those students with…

Central in the discussion of school improvement is the belief, supported by research, that almost all students can learn to read and that much reading failure is preventable. For almost all students to become literate, even those who are challenging to teach, educators must apply their best understanding of effective professional development, such…

The curricular and extracurricular responsibilities of teaching in a small school district require uniquely prepared teachers. Rural teachers often need additional background in instructional methods for teaching reading, content areas other than their specialty, discipline techniques, use of community resources, and individualized diagnosis and…

The 2009 edition of the "State Teacher Policy Yearbook" is the National Council on Teacher Quality's (NCTQ's) third annual review of state laws, rules and regulations that govern the teaching profession. This year's report is a comprehensive analysis of the full range of each state's teacher policies, measured against a realistic…

"Collaborations for Literacy" is a project conducted at Boston University (Massachusetts) that uses college work-study students to teach adults to read through reading to and with a child. This instruction is provided at two Boston neighborhood sites (Jackson-Mann Community School and the Brighton branch of the Boston Public Library).…

This guide is designed to lead program planners through the course of building and implementing a family literacy program. It provides planning teams with an orientation to a four-component model of family literacy, community resources, planning strategies, examples of programs in Missouri, recent research findings, case study vignettes, and…

A project was undertaken to develop, field test, and revise strategies for adult beginning readers (ABRs). During the first phase of the study, the researchers identified roadblocks to use of word recognition clues by ABRs. Based on data and feedback from local and state piloting and general principles of learning, the project staff developed the…

The fundamental principles underlying the "No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001" focus on high standards of learning and instruction with the goal of increasing academic achievement--reading and math in particular--within all identified subgroups in the K-12 population. One of these subgroups is the growing population of English…