I help teachers get struggling readers to grade level in weeks, not years. Founder, Reading Simplified · Lead developer, IES-funded TRI · https://xitter.cf/t.co/Dj9T7Qyufd
Colorado Springs, CO
Joined June 2013
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How long-standing and how deep is the science on early reading acquisition? Check out our hyperlinked timeline of history's heavy hitters. readingsimplified.com/scienc… #notnewnews #sor #scienceofreading @ehanford
Marnie Ginsberg retweeted
My kids now have to solve age appropriate math problems before each episode of Bluey, thanks to the miracle of AI reverse engineering and upgrading my TV 🔥🔥🔥
Tonight!
“If the kid hasn’t learned it, the teacher hasn’t taught it.”
That line from Sold a Story Season 2 is why I started Reading Simplified 25+ years ago.
Tomorrow 8pm ET: @BuildMathMinds (math) + me (reading) on episodes 1 & 2. Same factions, different subject
❝So, the year that Ronald Reagan was settling into the Oval Office, I learned to write, 'i hav a gœt.'❞
Can you read this? If not, you might not have grown up in rural Kentucky in the 1980s.
I was taught to read using a language that no longer exists: shorturl.at/XIwKI
“If the kid hasn’t learned it, the teacher hasn’t taught it.”
That line from Sold a Story Season 2 is why I started Reading Simplified 25+ years ago.
Tomorrow 8pm ET: @BuildMathMinds (math) + me (reading) on episodes 1 & 2. Same factions, different subject
Watch on Facebook: facebook.com/share/1Gnib2R5Y…
OR YouTube: youtube.com/live/FI6oylNH9VY…
“We’re flipping students like pancakes. Their teacher tells us they’re struggling and then we work with them and send them back in 3 weeks.”
That’s how an interventionist’s colleague describes her work: struggling readers come in, and they’re back in class in 3 weeks.
It’s a vivid line, and it deserves to be taken seriously. It’s one clear example of what can happen when instruction is efficient, diagnostic, and targeted. It isn’t a guarantee or a promise that every struggling reader needs 3 weeks, which is still unusual even for Reading Simplified, and it’s no reason to minimize students with more complex needs.
We’ve had 5+ years of Science of Reading momentum, and state regulations, training requirements, and district conversations have shifted.
That progress matters.
Yet in many places the 95% reading success goal researchers have shown is possible still feels far away.
So it’s fair to ask whether we’ve lost some urgency, whether we’ve lowered expectations because the work has felt so hard, and whether we’ve confused “more aligned” with “more effective for this child today”.
Teachers are not the problem. They’ve been working inside systems that often give them too many disconnected pieces and too few tools for fast, responsive decision-making.
Reading Simplified is built for a different kind of instructional rhythm: assess what the student can do, teach with high-leverage routines, watch the response and adjust quickly, then move the student into real reading and writing as soon as possible. That kind of instruction can renew momentum because it gives teachers clearer next steps and students more chances to show measurable growth.
The 95% goal should keep pressing us toward better tools, higher expectations, and faster evidence of progress, instead of becoming a slogan we admire from a distance.
This week, look for signs that students are moving faster than before: more accurate blending, stronger word reading, better spelling attempts, smoother connected text.
What’s one measurable sign of faster progress you’ll watch for in your next reading group?
#ScienceOfReading #ReadingIntervention #StructuredLiteracy #ReadingSimplified #LiteracyInstruction
Kids who resist reading aren't lazy. They're sick of getting it wrong. I'm speaking on day 1 of the free Close the Reading Gap Summit (Oct 19–25) with Dr. Louisa Moats and more. Free ticket: link.closethereadinggap.com/…
Marnie Ginsberg retweeted
Prepare yourselves! The upcoming season of Sold a Story gets at deep-seated cultural fears that systemic instruction will turn kids into robots, says @ehanford:
Marnie Ginsberg retweeted
Sold a Story Season 2 is coming, two weeks from today. youtube.com/watch?v=4YDq-AB_…
Marnie Ginsberg retweeted
This piece is excellent: on the wrenching decision many Black parents face when it comes to their children's schooling. drmiah.substack.com/p/the-im…
Yes, this is all true. I lived through it as an educator for 20+ years.
This is one of the craziest and most fascinating podcasts I've ever listened to.
Here's the backstory:
Millions of children are struggling to learn how to read.
But the problem isn't kids–it's how kids are being taught.
In the 2000s, schools stopped using phonics (sounding out words) for a new reading system called three-cuing (guessing unfamiliar words using context clues).
But that new system turned out to be based on false data.
Researchers tried to show it was ineffective, but politics and publishers got in the way and delayed changes in our reading system for decades.
One publisher made over $1 billion selling books to schools on a reading system that didn't work.
Now, 20-years later, schools are finally reversing course and going back to teaching phonics. But so much damage has already been done.
The podcast is called "Sold a Story" and it dives into the science, history, profits, and politics behind the reading wars.
If you're an educator, parent, or teacher, you have to listen to this podcast.
Marnie Ginsberg retweeted
A 12 year old boy walks into my office having already seen a psychiatrist, an allergist, a lung doctor, maybe a GI doctor. Seven different drugs by age 12. Kicked out of kindergarten for being disruptive. Diagnosed with ADHD and put on stimulant medication for years.
Nobody connected the dots. He also had asthma, headaches, stomachaches, insomnia. Each doctor treated their one piece and ignored the rest.
I did a full workup instead of writing another prescription. His gut microbiome was a mess. Leaky gut. Elevated gluten antibodies. Reacting to dairy. Fungal overgrowth. Low zinc, low magnesium, low B6, low folate, low omega 3s. Lead toxicity.
He ate only processed food. Never a vegetable in his life.
So we removed the gluten, dairy, sugar and processed food. Rebuilt his microbiome with probiotics. Treated the fungal overgrowth. Chelated the lead. Corrected the nutrient deficiencies with magnesium, zinc, fish oil.
Two months later his mother brought him back. No more symptoms. No more meds. No more behavioral issues.
And his handwriting went from illegible to perfect penmanship. Same kid, same brain, two months apart.
That handwriting change is what made me write The UltraMind Solution. A brain that chaotic and disorganized became coherent and synchronized once we fixed what was happening in his body. The writing on the page was just a reflection of what was happening in his gut.
ADHD is not a brain problem. It's a systemic problem that shows up in the brain. If your kid's brain isn't working right, don't just look north of the neck. Look at what's happening south of the border first.
Marnie Ginsberg retweeted
ALL school districts need to embrace the one or two really nerdy teachers that read 50 educational books a year or listen to podcasts on a daily or weekly basis. The ones with really good outcomes with their students year after year. I've heard too many stories from teachers on here that they are basically deemed the "difficult" teacher or are just sidelined in their district. Not all schools/districts do this, but far too many. This is a call to admin. It is perfectly fine if a teacher knows far more than you. Listen to them. Learn from them. Appreciate them. Put them in positions to help improve your district. Admin that do this are truly the best. It is about the kids. That is what we are all here for.
Marnie Ginsberg retweeted
Like others, I am very struck by the PISA results and how reading scores are down across industrialized nations. Also interesting that the UK did not decline ... would love someone to talk a bit about its approaches. edweek.org/teaching-learning…
Marnie Ginsberg retweeted
“When you chase 5 rabbits, you catch none of them.” 🐇
@Doug_Lemov broke this down for us, and we can’t unhear it.
He stops practice with five coaching points. All five are correct: pass on the ground with pace, receive on your back foot, eyes up, move it side to side, push higher.
“Got it? Go.”
Working memory holds about one thing at a time. So either the player picks one at random, and now you can’t reinforce anything, because you don’t know which one he picked, or they remember none of it and quietly get good at practicing while ignoring you.
You didn’t teach five things.
You taught them to tune you out.
One rabbit. 🐇
Marnie Ginsberg retweeted
I continue to see reference to "background knowledge" in discussions of comprehension, but knowledge is hardly in the background. It is at the forefront of comprehension, shaping what we understand and determining the richness of the meaning that we construct.
Tickled pink that a funky researcher term "set for variability" is the #1 Greatest Hit for @reachallreaders podcast! It's sneaking in as potentially the 2nd most important decoding strategy readers need. Listen here: open.spotify.com/episode/65K…