George Lucas Educational Foundation
Edutopia

Literacy

Find and share strategies for helping students read for knowledge, write coherently, and think critically about the written word.

  • How To Maximize the Benefits of Individual Reading Conferences

    Listening to a student read is great formative assessment that gives the teacher a clear sense of how to help them improve.
    Laura Lee

  • Making Research More Exciting Through Fiction Writing

    Narrative writing that incorporates research can be a more engaging alternative to a classic research paper. 
    Ryan Tahmaseb

  • Using Students’ Emotional Responses to Texts to Boost Literacy

    Naming the emotions that a text evokes can make reading more personal for students and deepen their learning.
    Stefani Boutelier

  • Mo Willems on the Lost Art of Being Silly

    The author of Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive The Bus! chats with us about creativity, drawing as empathy, and letting kids “do 51 percent of the work.”
    Emily Kaplan

  • If We Want Bookworms, We Need to Get Beyond Leveled Reading

    When it comes to nurturing kids’ love of reading, research suggests variety, choice—and encouragement to stretch—can make a difference.
    Sarah Gonser

  • Why Reading Aloud to Middle School Students Works

    The benefits of reading aloud aren’t limited to elementary students. One middle school teacher explains how “read-alongs” improve comprehension and boost engagement.
    Laura Lee

  • A Handy Strategy for Teaching Theme

    Analyzing the themes in a literary work can be tricky for students, but a simple formula can scaffold the process.
    Zach Wright

  • How to Teach Handwriting—and Why It Matters

    Teaching young students how to write by hand before moving on to keyboarding can help improve their reading fluency as well.
    Brooke MacKenzie

  • Borrowing a Literacy Strategy From Band Class

    A band teacher explains how a process he uses to train budding musicians’ inner voice can be used to help struggling readers improve.
    Brian Campbell

  • Reading Aloud to Middle School Students

    Hearing books read aloud benefits older students, enhancing language arts instruction and building a community of readers.
    Kasey Short

  • 5 Ways to Support Students Who Struggle With Reading Comprehension

    These strategies can help students who are able to decode well but have difficulty understanding what they read—and they’re beneficial for all students.
    Nina Parrish

  • Ditching the Reading Logs

    Tracking minutes wasn’t helping her students, so a teacher asked them to instead discuss their reading every day, making it a social activity.
    Allie Thrower

  • What Doesn’t Work: Literacy Practices We Should Abandon

    The number one concern that I hear from educators is lack of time, particularly lack of instructional time with students. Although we can't entirely solve the time problem, we can mitigate it by carefully analyzing our use of class time.
    Nell K. Duke

  • Schoolwide Strategies for Promoting a Love of Reading

    A literacy consultant explains how schools can encourage all students to share the joy of reading.
    Laura Lee

  • Debunking the IQ-Dyslexia Myth

    Children with dyslexia who struggle to read often conclude they're not smart enough to master the materials—but the research says that's wrong.