The Institute of Education Sciences is releasing a new What Works Clearinghouse Practice Guide today (July 5, 2016) with evidence-based recommendations to improve the reading skills of young students.
The practice guide, Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade, was developed by a panel of experts and offers tips and strategies that can be used in the classroom to improve teaching and learning around phonological awareness, fluency, vocabulary and other academic language skills. The panel reviewed the findings from hundreds of studies to arrive at four key recommendations that are at the heart of the guide:
• Recommendation 1. Teach students academic-language skills, including the use of inferential and narrative language, and vocabulary knowledge.
• Recommendation 2. Develop awareness of the segments of sounds in speech and how they link to letters.
• Recommendation 3. Teach students to decode words, analyze word parts, and write and recognize words.
• Recommendation 4. Ensure that each student reads connected text every day to support reading accuracy, fluency, and comprehension.
The practice guide offers specific examples and suggestions for implementing the recommendations in the classroom, and also highlights obstacles educators could face and identifies possible solutions
Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade is the 20th practice guide that WWC has released and the seventh in the literacy topic area. This practice guide can be used as a companion to a previously released practice guide, Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade.
The What Works Clearinghouse was established in 2002 to provide educators with the information they need to make evidence-based decisions on how to improve student outcomes. A part of the Institute of Education Sciences, the WWC strives to be a central and trusted source of scientific evidence on education programs, products, practices, and policies.