Doug Lemov's field notes

Don’t let the sun go down on these…

Books are finally having their moment in the sun. In a series of recent articles, journalists have laid bare the frightening trend of the dwindling of books in American reading classes. The New York Times featured,  short excerpts, a trend that is all too common in classrooms across the country.

Others have argued that books alone aren’t sufficient. We must be thoughtful in choosing our books: grade level texts, designed to challenge and inspire students. Tim Shanahan shares an abundance of research in his book, Leveled Readers, Leveled Lives, that shows we hinder students’ reading progress when we try to match the texts their reading with their “reading ability.” And in a recent article in The Atlantic, “Stop Meeting Students Where They Are”, professor Walt Hunter describes the beautiful and surprising results of re-incorporating challenging, book-length texts into his college English classes.

On Team TLAC, we’ve long believed in the importance of reading books. In fact, we devote an entire chapter to the power of the book in The Teach Like a Champion Guide to the Science of Reading, so we’re delighted that books are getting the attention they deserve. Incorporating more books is an important first step in reshaping our upper elementary school, middle school and high school English classes, but the work doesn’t stop there.

In our TLAC SOR TTT in Memphis on March 12^th and 13^th we’ll study practical tools and techniques that teachers can help students find meaning and joy in great books. Here’s a preview of the topics we’ll cover:

• Attention: we’ll discuss the role of attention in reading consider every technique through the lens of attention, focusing on how must shape attentionally privileged environments to facilitate robust reading and writing
• Ways of Reading: how to use Read Aloud, FASE Reading, and Accountable Independent Reading in balance to support more fluent reading of challenging texts
• Knowledge Building Tools: given the critical role that knowledge plays in comprehension, we’ll study tools that teachers can incorporate into literacy lessons to support comprehension and analysis of great books
• Vocabulary: we’ll explore practices to build long-term, durable word knowledge
• Writing: we’ll look at writing as a tool to process ideas about and understanding of text, and to reinforce networks of knowledge necessary for reading comprehension
• Close Reading (time allowing): intentionally and methodically helping students to establish meaning of key or critical lines or excerpts to help kids unlock deeper meaning (and pleasure) in the books they read

In our study of each technique, we’ll consider how to ensure that we are supporting not just supporting better reading comprehension through books, but using them to promote belonging and spark a love of reading. And best of all, we study each technique through the lens of studying classrooms that are implementing the science of reading in their instruction with fidelity and joy.

If you want to know more or sign up to join us you can do that here: https://www.tlacdevserver.com/science-of-reading/mar2026

Hope to see you there!