Of all the learning apps that my 4-year-old and I have tried, @once_reading is the only one that we’ve managed to persist in following for months. It works because: 1. It builds a habit where you need to learn with your kid daily 2. It has lightweight gamification like taking a silly photo with your kid after every lesson 3. After 30 lessons, Once will send you books for your kid to read by themselves, giving them a big feeling of accomplishment My kid loves reading now and will even choose her Once books over YouTube and the phone (sometimes at least) which is the highest compliment 😅 This is not sponsored or anything I just love the product. Try out Once here: tryonce.com/?utm_source=pete…

What do you do as a teacher in an era when students don't read outside of class & often struggle to read even in-class?? You can do as the @ncte suggests & "de-center" the text, abandoning reading books altogether & replacing them with short form videos & other dross. Or you can do as Jaime Johnson does & "re-center" the text, reading a worthy book together as a class. When you do that you can curate the act of reading itself so it becomes a meaningful, rich, empathetic habit for students. teachlikeachampion.org/blog/…

Actors use scripts. Musicians use sheet music. Surgeons follow established procedures. Why are scripts for teachers treated as an affront to professionalism? @ehanford explains why Direct Instruction uses them.

"too many states have chosen to tell parents their children are on track when they aren’t" say Arne Duncan and Margaret Spellings in a new Ed Week piece linked below. These charts compare the most recent National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) 4th gr reading and math reports with the state testing reports. The discrepancies are surprising.  If judged by national standards, students in most states are not as proficient in reading and math as the state tests say they are. Link to more charts below.

my son is reading three letter words he read lip today he turned three a couple days ago I am very proud of him 🥹

If your child becomes a reader, 80% of the education job is already done. Over the decades, I’ve seen thousands of kids. When a kid or a parent tells me they read for hours every day and read lots of books, my immediate thought is: “No problem here.” Biology, history, business, legal documents, even a math textbook – everywhere you need to read. If you read very slowly or with great difficulty, you’re behind. But reading also develops something else: quiet cognitive focus. Even a kid reading fantasy novels for hours is learning to sit down and focus. If a kid isn’t reading, they limp through all the academic content. If they are a reader, those basic reading abilities and that cognitive focus can transfer across domains. That’s why I worry less about the kind of education a child is getting than whether they are becoming a reader.

✏️ Pop quiz: Is @once_reading built understanding that: A) Sm-grp tutoring is very effective B) SoR is very effective C) All of the above It's C. We have always used what the research says is best. That's why it works.

Parents, read this 👇

Sophie says kids deserve better. We agree. Her wonderful Substack is a "syllabus for making childhood more interesting." raseman.substack.com/p/how-i…