Teaching students to read is one of the most important things we do as educators.
Reading Universe can help. You'll find ready-to-use teaching strategies, in-classroom videos, interviews with teachers and reading experts, and quick, concrete answers to common questions about teaching reading and writing.
And it's all free! We're glad you're here.
Reading Universe is made possible by generous support from Jim & Donna Barksdale; the Hastings/Quillin Fund, an advised fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation; the AFT; the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation; and three anonymous donors.
Teaching Step by Step
The Reading Universe Taxonomy is your interactive, step-by-step guide to teaching reading. It's designed for teachers, reading coaches, tutors, caregivers — anyone who wants to help a child learn to read. Watch below to learn more — or dive right in and give it a try!
Real Teachers in Real Classrooms
Reading Universe highlights great teaching from across the country, as in this video featuring DeAngela Huggins and her first graders at Burgess-Peterson Academy in Atlanta. They’re working on segmenting words into phonemes.
The Big Picture
Children across the country are struggling with reading. What can research tell us about how children learn to read? What can we all do to help more students succeed?
Timely Talks from Experts
Take an in-depth look at critical reading topics. Watch reading specialist Margaret Goldberg explain the science of how children learn to read. No registration required. Watch Julie Washington, Ph.D., offering guidance about teaching children who speak African American English at home. Coming soon: Elsa Cárdenas-Hagan, Ph.D., on teaching English learners.
Reading Skill Explainers
You Asked ... Experts Answered!
How long should students work with decodable text?
Hide Video Transcript Show Video Transcript
Louisa Moats: Decodable text is a necessary part of a phonics lesson. What's the point of learning the correspondence unless you can use it in reading? So it's to provide that practice. Many students need a lot of practice using what you've taught them in a phonics lesson. It's not often not great literature; it's not for that purpose. It's for providing practice and reinforcement. So how long does it need to go on? ... Until the student can use most of the regular correspondences to read words accurately, and the student has a sight vocabulary, if you will, of probably several thousand words. Students differ. Some students can make that transition more quickly than others. So you have to keep data on the accuracy of student reading with decodable text to be sure that they have internalized what they've been taught.
Dr. Louisa Moats, author of the LETRS professional development for teachers discusses the importance of reinforcing sound-letter correspondences with decodables and how to know when it’s time to move on.
Building on decades of experience ...
Reading Universe is a service of WETA/Reading Rockets, the Barksdale Reading Institute, and First Book.
Reading Universe is made possible by generous support from Jim & Donna Barksdale; the Hastings/Quillin Fund, an advised fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation; the AFT; the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation; and three anonymous donors.