Our LETRS Literacy Champion contest asks: “What makes a literacy champion and who is your literacy champion?” The contest also shares the insights of some true literacy champions, like Dr. Louisa Moats, educator Dr. Ebony Lee, Dr. Carol Tolman, Dr. Lucy Hart Paulson, and others. We’re looking for your nominations to add to our hall of fame.

Assessment can sometimes feel like that pile of puzzle pieces—which ones fit together? How do data fit together to create a comprehensive picture of a school, classroom, or individual student? Much is now known regarding which skills are highly predictive of later reading outcomes, and several excellent tools are available for this purpose. In kindergarten and first grade, timed tasks including letter naming, basic phonemic awareness, and rapid automatized naming (RAN) provide insight into who is at risk and to a certain extent; why.

The science of reading ... has allowed me to transition from a traditional classroom teacher to a virtual classroom teacher. Anyone can open a reading program and read the scripted text, but what happens when you do not have that reading program? LETRS provides you with the why (science) and the how (science) to teach reading, no program needed. LETRS teaches the science of reading which can be applied to any student, while being based on their individual level.

Learning to read in a language you are simultaneously learning to speak and understand is more complicated than learning to read in a language you already know. This is the challenge faced by millions of English learners (ELs) whose English proficiency is low and school achievement generally poor. What do we know about teaching English learners to read and write and develop as English readers and writers?

Presentations, webinars, discussions, and blogs about the “Science of Reading” seem to be everywhere these days. These sessions, often with Emily Hanford’s work at the center, cover so much groundbreaking information and generate a lot of empowering conversations, making it all the more exciting to watch the momentum surrounding this topic build. However, these sessions often end with two questions still unanswered in our minds.

Sound walls are becoming more common in classrooms thanks to a clearer understanding of the science of reading. We need to understand why a sound wall is set up differently than an A–Z alphabetical word wall and how to use a sound wall effectively to elevate daily instruction during Tier 1 by reviewing the 44 speech sounds and the options for spelling each of the sounds.