Reading Research: 12 Articles to Get Started

We’ve compiled these 12 articles and reports that collectively capture some of the ideas, evidence, and debate about what it takes to teach reading most effectively. 

1. Top 10 Things You Should Know About Reading (opens in new window) (Reading Rockets)
2. Teaching Children to Read: An Evidence-Based Assessment of the Scientific Research Literature on Reading and Its Implications for Reading Instruction (opens in new window) (National Reading Panel, 2000)
3. Report of the National Literacy Panel for Language Minority Children and Youth (opens in new window) (National Reading Panel, 2006)
4. 'It Works' and Other Myths of the Science of Reading Era (opens in new window) (Timothy Shanahan, Shanahan on Literacy, 2023)
5. Building Background Knowledge (opens in new window) (Susan Neuman, Tanya Kaefer, Ashley Pinkham, 2014)
6. Don't DYS Our Kids: Dyslexia and the Quest for Grade-Level Reading Proficiency (opens in new window) (Leila Fiester, 2012)
7. Ending the Reading Wars: Reading Acquisition From Novice to Expert (opens in new window) (Anne Castles, et al., 2018)
8. The Home-Learning/Literacy Myth (opens in new window) (Lyn Stone, Lifelong Literacy, 2024) — If your school relies heavily on parental support, says reading expert Lyn Stone, maybe there’s something wrong with your system.
9. Print-to-Speech and Speech-to-Print: Mapping Early Literacy (opens in new window) (Jeannine Herron, et al.)
10. Teaching Reading Is Rocket Science: What Expert Teachers of Reading Should Know and Be Able to Do (opens in new window) (Louisa Moats, 2020)
11. Intended Meaning of NAEP (opens in new window) (NCES, 2022) — Educators and the media refer all the time to state scores on the NAEP test, which is often called the “nation’s report card.”  Here’s a quick look at what those scores mean — and what they don’t.
12. Fact-Checking the Science of Reading (opens in new window) (Robert J. Tierney and P. David Pearson, 2024)

As we learn more about how children learn to read and write and how to teach them more effectively, the science of reading will evolve — and some of what we think we know will turn out to be wrong. In this entertaining TED talk, author Kathryn Schultz reflects "On Being Wrong (opens in new window)."