There has been much written about differentiation in the classroom. When teachers think about differentiation, they generally think about providing three levels of instruction: on level, below level and above level. We are trained to gear the bulk of instruction to the middle. These are the "typical" kids who fall within the expected level of functioning for their grade. We then adapt the instruction to meet the needs of kids who may be below level, and extend the learning for more advanced students. If we do this well we will have decent results in terms of achievement. However, we will not engage all learners effectively. What is really needed in schools is a personalized approach to learning. The goal of personalization is to not waste the learner's time. We want every student to be fully engaged in learning all the time.

This idea is incredibly important when it comes to reading. Students who grow into lifelong learners with a love of reading need to be allowed the time and space to read as much as possible when they are young. It is very unusual to find a preschool or kindergarten child who doesn't love books. They love it when we read to them, engage them in choral responses to books, and talk about stories. They are just naturally drawn to it. However, if they fail to master the basic decoding skills in first or second grade, reading becomes laborious and tedious. They start hating it and usually don't catch up if they don't master the basic skills by grade 3. Advanced students have the opposite problem. If they are forced to work on basic skills for too long, they become bored and will disengage from all reading activities.

Every classroom in the early years should include explicit instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics (decoding skills). Although many people will tell you that the English language is challenging, it is still quite simple. There are a finite number of letters and sounds. There are very predictable patterns, with a few teachable exceptions. Once a child has mastered these, she should not be forced to continue instruction in decoding. Unfortunately, many classrooms either fail to explicitly teach basic decoding skills, teach them in a non-systematic way, or continue teaching them as part of a "basal" series long after they have been mastered. What is needed is a completely individualized system that will provide explicit instruction over a period of time. This instruction will have an end point. A good example of such a system is Reading Horizons. Once this instruction is completed, the child will be free to engage in a host of other literacy experiences that are critical to future learning and to develop a love of reading.  

Instructional time is truly a precious commodity. We get 180 days of school each year. There are usually about 10-15 days when instruction is interrupted by testing, assemblies, bad weather, or other unusual events. Instructional time for literacy is generally 90 minutes (1.5 hours) per day. That means that we can only count on about 247.5 hours per year. If you were to calculate that according to a standard 40 hour work week, it would only equate to a little over 6 weeks. Think about your work like. How much can be accomplished in 6 weeks? In order to ensure success, we must manage instructional time in such a way that it is never wasted for any child. 

When the federal program called No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was envisioned over a decade ago, one expectation was for all children to learn to read proficiently by the end of third grade. We know from a great deal of research that children need to do this in order to continue learning the necessary skills and content to prepare them for college and career after high school. While NCLB has its champions and critics, what is clear is that our kids are still not reading by the end of third grade. Some of the most challenged districts only get about 20% of their kids to that milestone. According to a recent Annie E. Casey Foundation study, about two thirds of our nation's children are not reading proficiently by the end of third grade. These children are three times more likely to drop out of school. Those with the lowest skills are six times more likely not to make it to high school graduation. The consequences of leaving school early are astounding. Less than half of dropouts are employed, and male dropouts are 47 times more likely to go to jail or prison than their counterparts who graduate from high school. Those who drop out are much more likely to have children without the means to support them, perpetuating the poverty cycle. It seems clear that we must impact reading skills if we are to reverse these trends. Yet, despite over a decade of NCLB, we are not making a dent. 

The United States has a long history of solving social problems through its public schools. We ensure that children in poverty get free lunches, breakfasts, and in some places even dinner. We use schools to eradicate childhood disease by requiring immunization. When these ambitious initiatives were first launched, we didn't even blink. We knew our children were hungry and we fed them. We knew that childhood diseases were devastating, so we did what was necessary to keep our children from harm. Yet when it comes to the most basic thing that a school is here to do, we have accepted failure decade after decade. 

We do know what to do.

The worst part about this problem is that we do really know what to do. Teaching children to read is not some great mystery. Yes, the community and parents need to play a role. Yes, poverty influences this problem. But the truth is that if teachers are given the right tools and training, they can impact this tremendously in the classroom. There is money available. There are tools available that work. There are countless teachers who are desperate to get their students to a level of proficiency. Solving this problem takes focus and will. Here is a list of schools that have solved the problem. These approaches can be used all over the country, if only those in charge would move their schools in the right direction.

If we can solve homelessness, we can solve this.

Our country is in the process of solving the problem of homelessness for veterans. This started with a federal push, and then local communities taking a stand, beginning in Phoenix. The good people of Phoenix decided they would not stand for this and became determined to solve the problem. NCLB was supposed to be the federal declaration for education, and the local communities were supposed to take it from there. However, it instead became a mandate in order to receive federal funding, complete with carrots and sticks. What has been missing in reading is a moral imperative. Each community needs to decide that it is simply indecent for children to fail to learn to read. Once this is decided, we can solve this.