Three new studies offer clues about what makes texts easier and harder for young students to read on their own.

Two new studies suggest an important shift in thinking about beginning reading instruction. “Reading level” alone does not tell us enough about how difficult a text will be for students. The familiari...

YouTube video by TextProject

Morphology teaching frequently stops at the pieces — students drill prefixes and suffixes in isolation, fill in charts, match roots to definitions — without ever encountering those element in real texts. What learners also need is sustained engagement with texts where morphologically rich vocabulary appears in context. It's the combination — explicit guidance and meaningful reading — that lets students move from recognizing pieces to actually using the system.

A Read Washington Webinar with Dr. Elfrieda (Freddy) H. Hiebert, founder of TextProject

What does NAEP Proficiency actually represent? Is it intended to describe what is developmentally appropriate for most eighth graders, or does it represent a more ambitious target? Ambitious goals are...

This study examined how the lexical complexity of elementary reading textbooks has changed over six decades, finding that the issue is not declining rigor, but rather compressed progression.

At TextProject, we believe that literacy is the gateway to agency. But beyond the mechanics of reading lies the why: the stories that stay with us, the books that make us look at a common bird or a qu...

TextProject resources, including those for beginning reader help students master decoding through meaningful content.

TextProject founder and CEO Dr Elfrieda (Freddy) Hieberts joins Melissa and Lori of the Melissa and Lori Love Literacy podcast to talk about her life's work: the importance of texts in reading instruc...

How do preservice teachers learn what makes a text complex? This study evaluates how one can teacher educator program approaches classroom text selection.

Misconceptions about the complexity of classroom texts for beginning readers led teachers to de-emphasize independent reading practice.

While AI excels at organizing and presenting factual information, the art of crafting stories that resonate with young readers still requires human creativity, emotional intelligence, and lived experi...

Some educators are spending too much time on phonics instruction in the early grades, experts warn.

YouTube video by TextProject

In my recent article “Unpacking automaticity: Scaffolded texts and comprehension,” I introduced Critical Word Zones as the foundation for scaffolded texts. When discussing this approach, educators oft...