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.
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, and 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!
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[Music] If you teach reading, you know how rewarding it can be. But you've probably also found that in every class there will be students who really struggle with learning to read.
Reading Universe is here to help. With expert guidance we've developed a new framework to support educators everywhere. It's called the Reading Universe Taxonomy.
How does this free professional resource work? It's built upon the leading research on how we learn to read. We are born with the ability to learn oral language, but making sense of the written word doesn't come naturally; so we need to teach students that the letters on a page represent the sounds we all use to speak with each other.
The path to literacy is through word recognition. Children need to crack the alphabetic code using phonological awareness and phonics. They need to be able to hear that a spoken word like net is made up of separate sounds: /n/, /e/, /t/. That's phonological awareness. And they need to connect those sounds to the letters of the alphabet to see 'n', 'e', 't' and read net. That's phonics.
But being able to read words is just one part of the process. Students also need to understand what the words mean. That's called language comprehension. As children gain more knowledge of the world around them, they begin to recognize more of the words that they sound out. Then they can build on their knowledge through more reading. Only students who develop word recognition and language comprehension can achieve reading comprehension. It takes both to become a good reader.
Inside the Reading Universe Taxonomy you'll find everything you need to know about how to teach the reading skills your students need to master. Each literacy component is broken down into its many skills and processes. For each skill we show why it matters and how to teach it effectively, and we offer ideas for supporting students who need extra help. We don't just describe effective teaching, we show it with in-classroom video filmed in schools around the country.
Ongoing assessment is critical to effective teaching, so we provide guidance for determining what each student needs and how to tailor your instruction to meet those needs. Reading comprehension is not just one skill. It's the product of all the many skills that we teach our children.
We hope the Reading Universe Taxonomy will become your trusted go-to guide and that, together, we can give more children the chance to excel as readers and in their lives. This is Reading Universe.
Special Thanks
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 (opens in new window); the AFT (opens in new window); the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation (opens in new window); and three anonymous donors.
Free New Courses
Check out ParaReading, our five-course series for paraprofessionals about how to teach reading.
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.
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Students and DeAngela Huggins:
[background noise]
DeAngela Huggins:
... All set and we are ready! Our next listening game, we're going to segment or break the word apart into sounds. So I'm going to give you the entire word, and then you're going to help me tap out the sounds. What are we going to do?
Students and DeAngela Huggins:
Tap out the sounds ...
DeAngela Huggins:
And then you're going to show me on your fingers how many sounds were in that word. Okay. So let's use my mystery word cat again. If we said /k/, /a/, /t/. Let's tap it.
Students:
/k/, /a/, /t/
DeAngela Huggins:
How many sounds are in that word?
Students:
Three.
DeAngela Huggins:
Three. So you're going to just show me so I can see that everyone is hearing all of these sounds okay. So you ready? All right. First word, we're going to segment it. The first word is far.
Students:
far
DeAngela Huggins:
Tap out the sounds.
Students:
/f/, /ar/
DeAngela Huggins:
How many sounds? [Students hold up two fingers.] There are two sounds in that word. Next word. Let's listen. Listen, very carefully. Chart.
Students:
chart
DeAngela Huggins:
Let's tap it.
Students:
/ch/, /ar/, /t/
DeAngela Huggins:
How many sounds? Three. Very good. The next word ... listen ... has a blend ... start.
Students:
start
DeAngela Huggins:
start
Students:
[students count the phonemes with their fingers] /s/, /t/, /ar/, /t/
DeAngela Huggins:
How many sounds?
Students:
Ooh.
DeAngela Huggins:
How many sounds Felix? [students hold up four fingers] Four. There are four sounds. You guys are doing so good! All right. Next word is block.
Students:
block
DeAngela Huggins:
Say the word block.
Students:
block
DeAngela Huggins:
All right. Let's tap the sounds.
Students and DeAngela Huggins:
[Students count the sounds with their fingers.] /b/, /l/, /o/, /ck/
Students:
block
DeAngela Huggins:
How many sounds? Four [students hold up four fingers]. Very good. In our last one, because you guys are so smart, the word's going to be smart. What's the word?
Students:
smart
DeAngela Huggins:
Let's tap all those sounds.
Students:
[Students count out the sounds with their fingers.] /s/, /m/, /ar/, /t/
DeAngela Huggins:
Smart. How many sounds? [Students hold up four fingers.] Good job you guys give your brains a big kiss.
Narrator:
For more information, please visit ReadingUniverse.org. Special thanks to Burgess Peterson Academy and Atlanta Public Schools. Reading Universe is made possible by generous support from Jim and Donna Barksdale, the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, and two anonymous donors. Reading Universe is a service of WETA, Washington DC, the Barksdale Reading Institute, and First Book.
DeAngela Huggins:
This is Reading Universe.
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?
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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 (opens in new window); the AFT (opens in new window); the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation (opens in new window); and three anonymous donors.