Reach Every Reader aims to increase literacy in the next generations
In this Q&A, MIT Professor and Neuroscientist John Gabrieli shares the initiative’s approach to improving literacy rates in the U.S.
By Stefanie Koperniak
In a world where literacy rates in developed nations soar at or above 96%, the U.S. literacy rate hovers at 79% — a surprising figure when compared to the high rates seen in other developed countries. As the nation grapples with this literacy crisis, one initiative is stepping forward with a plan to change the narrative.
Based on an analysis of National Assessment of Educational Progress test scores, 25 million children in the U.S. cannot read proficiently. This crisis can be traced back through school systems — with only 37% of students graduating high school at or above reading proficiency, 67% of fourth-graders reading below grade level, and 34% of children entering kindergarten lacking the basic skills needed to learn how to read.
In an effort to tackle this significant crisis of early literacy with new approaches that consider the many different factors involved, Reach Every Reader launched in 2018. This initiative is a collaboration of the Integrated Learning Initiative at MIT Open Learning, Harvard Graduate School of Education, and the Florida Center for Reading Research and College of Communication & Information at Florida State University. Reach Every Reader aims to provide the assessments needed to identify students who need support and the data-supported tools that will engage students in reading and become successful readers.
Reach Every Reader’s leadership team includes John Gabrieli, the Grover Hermann Professor of Health Sciences and Technology and a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT. In honor of International Literacy Day on September 8 — established in 1967 to celebrate the importance of reading and emphasize the key role of literacy in society — Gabrieli discusses this initiative’s approach to improving literacy rates in the U.S., and therefore expanding opportunities to more people.
How is Reach Every Reader tackling the very complex challenge of literacy?
Reach Every Reader is employing scientific approaches to improving reading outcomes for all children, but especially the most vulnerable children with learning differences, such as dyslexia, or learning disadvantages, such as growing up in lower-income environments that often offer less support. Reading outcomes for such children — and indeed all children — have not improved on scale for the past 20 years. This is a problem because reading underlies nearly all forms of learning in school, from history to the sciences to math.
How is this program different from other and past programs, and what are some of its impacts?
This program is unique in several ways. First, it is an alliance of researchers from different institutions. Second, it has combined rigorous science with practical outreach to 47 states, involving over 28,000 educators, more than 57,000 children, and over 7,000 parents. The combination of such quality and scope is rare in education.
At MIT, Eric Klopfer and his collaborators have developed automated smart-speaker tools to encourage and support parents to provide interactive reading experiences for their children. Such experiences are known to help children grow the language skills needed to become good readers upon entering kindergarten. Also at MIT, my team and I have shown that different kinds of early reading supports are most effective depending on whether a beginning reader is struggling with dyslexia or is behind in reading due to socioeconomic disadvantage.
At Harvard, James Kim and his collaborators have shown in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District in North Carolina that reading complex nonfiction texts in a spiral curriculum, such that readings are built upon each other, enhanced reading skills across first to third grade. Math skills also improved, and now this new curriculum will expand into 100 different school districts around the country in the next five years.
How do literacy screenings and assessments work?
Children arriving at kindergarten have little reading skill, but research has shown that a number of pre-reading skills are predictive of how well a child will learn to read. These skills can be measured on tests that assess several such pre-reading skills. This is important to know as early as possible because the most validated forms of instruction that help children who struggle to read are only effective in the early years (kindergarten through second or third grade). Early screening of children can help identify those at high risk for reading failure, and, in turn, these children can be provided with the additional instruction known to help. Typically, such assessments have been costly and have usually involved experts. The newer assessments from Reach Every Reader are aimed at being automated and easy to administer in school settings, and thus widely available for all children.
Why is it important to work toward literacy with children and their caregivers before the children even start kindergarten?
Print is spoken language made visible. Nearly all children arrive in school having naturally heard and spoken language at home, and early reading instruction is largely about learning to map the spoken language they know to the print that they do not know. Much research shows that the quality and quantity of pre-school spoken language experience, which occurs primarily at home, is a strong determinant of a child’s vocabulary knowledge. Vocabulary knowledge upon entry to school predicts reading skill throughout elementary and middle schools, which, in turn, predicts likelihood of high-school completion and going to college. If we can enhance home language experiences prior to kindergarten entry, we may be able to significantly improve reading skills and subsequent education progress in children from disadvantaged environments.
The work of Reach Every Reader is funded by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
