The Science of Text Levels: Leveled Reading, Leveled Lives

Read Washington, in partnership with Decoding Dyslexia Washington, Reading Equity Project, WABIDA, and The Reading League Washington, is excited to present The Science of Text Levels: Leveled Reading, Leveled Lives: Why Reading Has Not Improved and How We Can Change That, with Timothy Shanahan, Ph.D., on October 25th, from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. PDT.

In this webinar, Timothy Shanahan examines how the most widely used approach to teaching reading has prevented American children from reaching the highest levels of reading. Since the 1940s, teachers have been told that kids make the most learning progress when they are taught at their instructional levels or their reading levels. This has led to a panoply of reading tests, book leveling systems, and small-group instructional routines. Here, Shanahan summarizes the research showing that this approach limits reading achievement rather than maximizing it, and explains why this couldn’t possibly work. What’s the alternative? This presentation will provide practical guidance on how reading should be taught if we want students to read as well as possible.

This webinar will be recorded. Registration fee includes access to the webinar recording and presentation materials. Live attendance is limited to 500, on a first-come, first-served basis.

Your registration confirmation email will provide the Zoom webinar link.

Timothy Shanahan is a distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He served as the director of reading for the Chicago Public Schools, is the former president of the International Literacy Association, and served on the advisory board of the National Institute for Literacy under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. In 2007, he was inducted into the Reading Hall of Fame.

About Dr. Shanahan's new book, Leveled Reading, Leveled Lives, from Harvard Education Press:

An engaging and evidence-based examination of how reading instruction has been misinterpreted and misapplied for decades, and how to right the course to improve reading skills for all students

In Leveled Reading, Leveled Lives, leading literacy expert Timothy Shanahan curates a lively tour of the history of reading instruction in the United States, arguing that the most popular reading instruction method is failing students and suppressing their literacy achievement. He breaks down the reasons why teachers and researchers alike have favored this accepted wisdom, known as instructional-level theory, in US schools over the past five decades—and presents a compelling case for a new way forward that will bolster students’ reading skills.

Today it’s not uncommon to find students in a fourth-grade classroom reading books suitable for third-, second-, or even first-graders. Teachers suggest books to students at their deemed “instructional levels,” but how these instructional levels are determined is suspect. With a comprehensive, critical analysis of instructional-level pedagogy, Shanahan exposes its shaky foundations and shows how faulty research findings have become so entrenched. He gathers an extensive body of research studies that overwhelmingly contradict the instructional-level theory and offers an evidence-based consideration of how educators must instead use grade-level reading to bring about maximum learning gains.

This seminal book concludes with practical advice for implementing grade-level reading instruction, including detailed descriptions of the types of instruction and scaffolding needed to increase students’ reading achievement, from teaching decoding and challenging texts to scaffolding reading to maintaining motivation. Shanahan asserts that a better approach can ensure that all students have an opportunity to leave high school with reading abilities commensurate with their personal, social, civic, and economic goals.