Closing the Reading Gap: ResearchED Home

On the 22nd of May, I had the great pleasure to join the researchEd Home gang to talk ‘Closing the Reading Gap (in the time of Coronavirus)’.

A couple of years ago, when I began researching this issue more specifically, I never could have expected that a pandemic would play a significant factor in the ‘reading gap’. Hopefully, the session offered useful ballast for teachers and school leaders during a rocky time.

I wanted to write a short blog to share the presentations, research cited, resources and links suggested in the session.

You can watch the presentation here:

Selection of research cited in the presentation:

Research cited on ‘When Children are Not Read to at Home: The Million Word Gap’, Logan et al. (2019)

Research cited on ‘Don’t throw away your printed books: A meta-analysis on the effects of reading media on reading comprehension.’ Delgado et al. (2018)

Research cited on ‘School’s Out: The Role of Summers in Understanding Achievement Disparities‘, by Atteberry & McEachin (2019). You can also find a strong challenge of the very notion of ‘summer learning loss‘, here, ‘Summer Learning Loss: What is it and what can we do about it? by Quinn and Polikoff (2017).

Research cited on ‘Comprehension skill, inference-making ability, and their relation to knowledge’ by Cain and Oakhill (2001).

Research cited on ‘Working with parents to support children’s learning’, EEF guidance report.

Other useful links mentioned in the presentation:

See my resource page that includes a CTRG reading list; Whole class reading strategies; the Arduous Eight; CTRG Reading prioritisation resource etc – see HERE.

Reading Rockets is a great literacy website based in the US that offers much more than reading too.

I recommended Professor Tim Shanahan’s brilliant blog – see HERE.

I explored ‘pre-complex texts‘ in the talk, taken from Doug Lemov. His opening chapter of ‘Reading Reconsidered‘ gives helpful context on his idea of pre-complex texts – see HERE.

I mentioned the NELI early language project for younger would be readers – find out more HERE.

The EEF has produced a range of literacy guidance reports, including the latest ‘Improving Literacy in Secondary Schools‘ – see HERE.

I’ve been happy to play a small part in a range of resources to share with parents, including supporting reading at home during school closures – see HERE.

Last, but by not least – if you want to pick up a copy of the best-selling book, ‘Closing the Reading Gap’ – see here:

Amazon – HERE

Routledge – HERE