5 Literary Experts Discuss How We Grow Readers
Being able to read is fundamental to early school success, lifelong learning, civic participation, and personal growth. It is one of the strongest indicators of a child’s future school and career success, and, in contrast, 70% of incarcerated adults cannot read beyond a 4th grade reading level.
In many communities across southern Idaho, fewer than half of students demonstrate reading proficiency, and that problem has been exacerbated by two years of school disruption during the pandemic. How can reading be a whole community effort? What is the best research on how children learn to read, and what can we all do, as parents, grandparents, babysitters, neighbors, and caregivers, to support it? How do we support reading across learning differences, socioeconomic differences, and racial differences?
We’ll discuss these questions, and how we can work together to cultivate a culture of reading, with five of the nation’s leading literacy scholars: Judi Dodson, Antonio Fierro, Louisa Moats, Carol Tolman, and Anne Whitney, who are all here to lead an Early Literacy Summit with teachers from around southern Idaho.