Reading specialists, or literacy specialists, undergo specialized training that enables them to help struggling readers. They work with classroom teachers in the early grades to support and supplement reading instruction. 

They also have the added responsibility of assessing students and analyzing data. This is to identify students who may need further help and to monitor their progress. 

Reading specialists work on specific skills that are essential on the path towards reading mastery. They help reinforce these skills which the general curriculum may or may not cover. 

In the US, there are approximately 19,000 reading specialists. 

Approximately 4 million students are enrolled in Grade 3 in the US in 2022. We regularly read reports from different states about the percentage of Grade 3 and Grade 4 students scoring below the state assessment level for reading proficiency. It ranges from 20% to as much as 60%. 

Even if the lower quartile is considered, that means 1 million students are struggling to read in the US. It’s quite a daunting task for reading specialists, with each reading specialist, on average ,responsible for supporting 52 students!

In this article, we look at the nature of the job that is done by reading/literacy specialists, evidence of their effectiveness, and put forward ways in which we can better support them. 

Understanding The Role of Reading Specialists

In order to support reading specialists, it’s important to understand their role.

Though at times used interchangeably, the reading/literacy specialist, the reading teacher, and the reading/literacy coach are different roles. 

The reading teacher is the primary classroom teacher in the early elementary grades. They are responsible for teaching the language arts curriculum. 

The literacy coach role has many overlaps with the reading specialist, but one important differentiator is that the literacy coach provides in-class literacy coaching to the teachers. They are often involved in the planning process of how to raise the literacy achievement for a whole classroom. As such, they are more involved with teachers.

The reading specialist works more closely with students, and acts as a resource for teachers. They assess and instruct students, provide personalized instruction as required, and create literacy activities for the teachers. 

Due to their close proximity to students and knowledge of early literacy instruction, they have a special significance in any pre-K to 3 education team. 

Success of Reading Specialists

​​Reading specialists are well versed in structured literacy approaches. 

As more schools are shifting towards the Science of Reading in their early literacy strategies, the knowledge and training the reading specialist possesses has become a valuable commodity. 

Literacy specialists are able to combine their skillset with assessment tools to provide science-based reading instruction to the whole classroom, but also work on specific skills for those students that need the extra help. Thus, they are an ideal fit for early literacy intervention programs in schools. 

There is evidence to suggest that early reading interventions work best when facilitated by technology. In a study of seven schools in southwestern US in rural low-income communities, groups of students who received technologically facilitated early reading intervention outperformed their peers in all reading outcomes.

The Center for American Progress, a nonpartisan policy think tank, recommends the U.S. Department of Education give competitive preference to educational programs that provide teachers opportunities to work with certified reading specialists. 

This highlights the invaluable position of reading/literacy specialists in their ability to positively influence outcomes in early reading programs. 

Reading Specialists’ Principles That Unlock Student Potential

Sprig Learning aims to provide every child a fair shot at success. 

To maximize every early learner’s reading potential, it’s imperative we support our reading/literacy specialists. 

Reading specialists follow these four principles to raise literacy performance. These four important conditions have to be met in order to support our reading specialists.

1) Provision of resources and professional development opportunities that focus on the latest evidence based approaches.

Reading specialists need to use the right content and practices to teach reading to their students. 

Proven practices and educational materials should be chosen in order to empower reading specialists. With support from administrators, the most accurate and effective instruction can be provided to the students that is conducive to literacy achievement.

Professional Development should also focus on science-backed content and instruction. It can include grade-level meetings, workshops, professional learning communities, teacher collaboration, and conference attendance. 

2) Student assessments throughout the year for implementing effective differentiated instruction.

Reading specialists benefit from assessments that are formative, reliable and efficient. It’s best when these assessments are easy to implement and are paired with a progress monitoring mechanism. 

With an intuitive assessment and monitoring system, reading specialists have more time to adapt instruction and deliver it to students. 

Taking the dual administrative burden of assessment and tracking off their shoulders, allows them more time to spend with early learners and work on those critical early literacy skills and concepts.

3) Immediate adjustments when interventions fail.

Every student is unique. It’s possible that they fail to understand the instruction that is provided to them based on initial assessment. The reading specialist should be ready to adjust the:

• number of learning activities in daily lessons (too many or too few).
• level of direct and explicit instruction (more direct).
• pace of instruction (slowing down the rate).
• duration of each lesson (more or less minutes).
• frequency of lessons (more or less in one week).
• level of difficulty (appropriateness of the instruction level).
• number of students in a learning group (more or less students).
• educational materials used (appropriateness of the educational material).

4)  Setting comprehension as the ultimate goal.

There are two main goals at play here. First, the student needs to be able to read. Second, the student must be able to understand what they read. 

The Science of Reading takes a systematic approach to this, tackling the most fundamental reading skills first such as phonological awareness and phonics, eventually reaching fluency, and ultimately working all the way up to comprehension. 

Everything is done sequentially and systematically, so the basic building blocks of literacy are covered and no child gets left behind. It puts reading specialists in a strong position where they do not have to remediate years or months worth of missed learning. Rather they can work to unblock whatever difficulty the early learner is facing at present.

Supporting The Whole Early Literacy Team

It’s not only literacy specialists that need support, but other members of the early literacy team as well. This includes the primary classroom teacher, the literacy coach, the literacy coordinator, speech language pathologist, and others. 

Literacy inequity is a challenge big enough to warrant the joint efforts of all. Sprig hopes to do its part.

By understanding the fine details and principles of success for each role, it’s possible to bring everyone together for optimum collaboration. 

This is the beginning of our early literacy team series.The series will be continued next week, where the focus will be on literacy coaches.

If you have any questions about using technology for assessments and early literacy science-based instruction, do not hesitate to contact us. 

Today is National Teacher Day in the US! Where would we be without teachers and the lasting contribution they make in our lives?

To mark this special day, we want to highlight the team aspect of teaching. 

There are many studies that suggest teachers think highly of collaborative teaching and consider it a valuable and effective use of their time.

As the teaching profession evolves, there are new roles created that focus on a single specialty or help manage a number of different activities.

All of such roles ultimately have an unified purpose of providing the maximum benefit to the student. 

The goal is always to raise student success and ensure student well being. 

Despite all the challenges commonly faced by teachers, they are committed to the teaching profession to help students.

It takes an enormous amount of effort and dedication to teach preschoolers, kindergarteners and students in the early elementary grades. That’s why Sprig Learning supports the teaching cause by designing holistic early learning programs for Pre-K to Grade 3. 

For this year’s National Teacher Day, let’s take time to understand each teaching role to truly appreciate them! 

The Most Essential Early Childhood Teacher Roles in Pre-K to Grade 3

The foundational years are absolutely critical to a child’s long-term educational success. Listed below are the customary and indispensable roles in early childhood education. 

All early childhood teachers contribute tremendously to the assessing, teaching and evaluation of early learners. 

Pre-K Teacher

Preschool or Pre-K teachers both instruct and care for children typically aged two to four years old. They have to prepare their young students for kindergarten.

At this stage, it’s crucial that all early development milestones are reached. 

Kindergarten Teacher

Kindergarten is considered to be the start of formal education. It is the starting grade level for the majority of elementary schools in North America.

Kindergarten teachers have to plan and implement lessons for children generally aged five years old. They have to supervise their students, keep them motivated, and guide their development as they develop the foundational early learning skills.

For many school systems, assessments also start at this level. There are best practices to design assessments for early childhood education.

Grade 1, Grade 2 and Grade 3 Teachers

Early primary teachers (namely in Grades 1, 2 and 3) help children transition into the elementary grades. They ensure learning progress in all the core subjects: language, math, science and social studies. 

Teacher Aide/ Teacher Assistant

The teacher aide assists preschool teachers in their work. They perform a variety of tasks such as preparing classroom materials and completing administrative tasks. There are teacher aides in preschool, kindergarten and the early elementary grades.

Remediation Teacher/Intervention Specialist

Remediation teachers help children who are struggling with early reading and/or math. They work alongside the student’s regular teacher, and work one-on-one with those students who require the most help.

Reading Specialist/Literacy Specialist/ Elementary Math Specialist

Reading specialists teach kids that are struggling with reading and/or writing. They work with students in small groups, and like homeroom teachers, they also plan, teach and evaluate instruction.

Reading specialists have advanced training and experience in teaching reading. They assess literacy performance of readers in general, and struggling readers in particular.

Literacy Coach/Literary Coordinator

Literacy coaches work with educators and students to improve literacy scores. They help to develop lesson plans, conduct lesson demonstrations and evaluations, and analyze student literacy achievement data. The coach can also observe the teachers as they present lessons and make suggestions for improvement. 

Sometimes the role can also include leading professional development and collaborating with all teachers to improve literacy for an entire grade or the whole school. 

Director of Elementary Education

The Director of Elementary Education formulates and implements a vision for the district’s instructional programs from Pre-K to Grade 6. 

Don’t Forget The Home

Parents/Caregivers

Learning happens both in the school and at home. Parental involvement is critical for student success. Parents and other caregivers are able to support the learning journey of the child as they go to school everyday and come back home. 

The Need For Collaboration in Early Childhood Education

At a school level, the administrators always want to understand the role of each educator in creating a successful learning program. It’s important for them to understand the relationship between the members of the team.

In kindergarten classrooms that have an educator team consisting of more than one role, it’s seen that the team members have complementary skills that allow them to address individual student’s needs and ensure meaningful learning opportunities. 

In its full-day kindergarten programs, Ontario pairs teachers with early childhood educators, who are trained in child development, observation and play-based learning. 

There has been a lot of research done on the positive influence of teacher collaboration on student achievement. While teacher quality alone is a big factor in determining student performance, working collaboratively enhances teacher effectiveness and expertise.

In light of all the emerging evidence that advocates for teacher collaboration, there is a rise in early childhood educator teams where collaborative planning is a part of the agenda. 

By respecting the unique skill sets each teacher brings to the table, it’s possible to optimize high-quality early learning for every child. 

All for One. One for All.

Early Learning Dream Team

Sprig Learning is a purpose-built company that provides early learners, educators and parents with access to the tools needed to build a foundation for lifelong learning.

We produce early learning programs that are culturally relevant, teacher developed, and curriculum aligned. 

Any teacher can quickly be set up with an account on Sprig Language or Sprig Math. They can begin managing their class in no time at all. 

They can access holistic assessments, personalized activities targeting learning areas, and surveys from others to get a better perspective of the student.

When every teacher onboards on the platform, the teaching experience transforms into something even more magical! 

The homeroom teacher, or main classroom teacher in preschool, kindergarten and the early primary grades, can keep track of all students from one platform. They can assign activities that work on all the different learning outcomes outlined in the curriculum. 

The reading specialist or elementary mathematics specialist can closely monitor performance in the different learning domains in language and math. They can group students accordingly to deliver differentiated instruction.

Those students who need even more support can be looked at by the remediation or intervention specialist. They can formulate a one-on-one learning strategy, and take help from classroom resources available in the program, or look at survey results from caregivers for more insight into the early learner’s educational environment. 

The director of elementary education, or any assessment director at the elementary level, can compare classroom performances to see what is working and identify teacher collaborative planning strategies.

Team work really does make the dream work, especially in early learning! To learn more about how Sprig Learning can facilitate team work to raise student achievement, simply reach out!

Again, let’s take this time to celebrate all the different teachers working every day for our early learners. 

To show our gratitude, we have slashed prices at the Sprig Store by 20% for all products. Simply use the promo code Sprigforteachers at the checkout cart. 

The Ontario Human Rights Commission recently released the Right to Read report, which showed the education system is failing children who struggle to read. 

Early learners are not always assessed properly and the interventions are often too few and too late to make a difference. 

Before they know it, the window of optimum learning opportunity passes, and they do not learn the essential literacy skills that are needed to become strong and confident readers. 

Is it only in Ontario? No. Almost two-thirds of all 4th graders in the United States l did not meet the minimal reading standards according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress. 

In certain states, only one out of every four students met the required standard of reading proficiency.  

Literacy is a science, and there is a plethora of things to consider when explaining variances in literacy outcomes. 

For schools, timeliness is especially important in making a difference in building early literacy skills. A stitch in time saves nine. 

In this article, Sprig Learning zeroes in on early literacy skills, and their impact on student outcomes. 

Why Is Early Literacy Important?

By itself, literacy is paramount for success.

Learning how to read enables young students to acquire further knowledge. 

Statistics from countless studies show the effect of early learning on future academic and social success.

But it is even more important to develop early literacy! 

By habituating children to read, and educating them on the art of reading before they enter school, their learning potential is maximized. It’s why Sprig focuses on pre-K to Grade 3. 

In the early years of school, a systematic evidence-based learning path can be continued for them throughout their education. 

Such a structured literacy approach is known as the Science of Reading. Studies show that this approach can reduce the number of below-level readers by 25 percentage points. 

Structured Literacy vs Balanced Literacy

Simply put, structured literacy focuses on the skill of reading, whereas balanced literacy focuses on the activity of reading.

It does not necessarily have to be an either/or situation. 

But it is highly important that the skills of reading such as phonics, semantics and syntax are taught specifically and systematically, alongside taking part in reading activities. 

The Sprig Language program works all these learning areas and provides activities through which these early literacy skills can be strengthened. 

Structured literacy also has a diagnostic aspect, where instruction is assessment driven. 

It allows educators to identify learning differences in students so the right opportunities can be provided to them to learn a particular area. 

Sprig’s holistic approach to early learning always begins with such an assessment. 

In order to really ensure all students succeed, there is also the need to incorporate early literacy interventions into a system of structured literacy. 

What Is Early Literacy Intervention? 

Early literacy intervention refers to the action that is taken to help early learners who are struggling in reading or writing. 

Groups of students or individual students who are not meeting grade-level expectations are identified as needing intervention.

Effective literacy interventions increase accountability for all students.

But if not done in a systematic way or if done only after Grade 3, these programs can be very costly and miss those students who need help. 

What Is the Need for Early Literacy Intervention?

Early literacy interventions enable early learners to make the right choices from the get go, when they are first introduced in the education setting. 

Young learners have diverse strengths, needs and weaknesses. 

For example, some children have phonological problems. If not corrected in time, it can lead to further oral language difficulties, which can compound into the inability to read at grade level. 

Other students may have early symptoms of dyslexia, which can be managed with specialized instruction.

What Are Early Literacy Skills?

Early literacy skills refers to those foundational competencies required to learn how to read and write. 

By focusing on these skills early on, it’s possible to reduce the number of early literacy interventions needed. 

These skills include vocabulary, print motivation, print awareness, narrative skills, letter knowledge, phonological awareness, oral language development and learning to write.

Practices to Establish Early Literacy Skills

There are five main activities that prepare an early learner for reading. 

They are talking, singing, reading, writing and playing. 

The early literacy skills are a product of these practices.

Once an early literacy skill is identified, the appropriate literacy instruction strategy can be selected.

There are so many learning approaches that differentiate learning for students, based on their ability and current skill level. 

But the question should always be asked: what activities are in this approach, and what early literacy skills is each activity working on? 

Early Literacy Skills Classroom Best Practices

When instruction is designed for a classroom, it’s best if all the early literacy skills are taught. 

This can be done through interactive activities such as storybook reading, rhyming games, singing songs, etc.

Sprig Language has hundreds of such learning activities that are neatly mapped to curriculum outcomes, and can be done as a whole class, in centers, or individually with each student.

It’s important to utilize a research-backed tool, system or framework that contains activities that teach all the different literacy skills. It helps educators adopt a structured literacy approach. 

The University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Literacy Network conducted meta-research to find evidence supporting early literacy best practices that results in improved student achievement.

4 classroom characteristics are explored that are ideal for the successful development of literacy skills.

Student-centered: Focus on engagement with the learning material and collaboration between students. 

Knowledge-centered: Focus on understanding the importance of reading and making connections between what is learned and how it applies to reading. 

This includes code-based instruction, which helps children understand the relationship between spoken language and print. 

Assessment-centered: Focus on regularly assessing students via formative assessments that guide learning.

Reflection-centered: Focused on understanding what is being read. Encourages students to learn different content areas using their acquired literacy. 

Stages of Early Literacy Development

The five stages of early literacy development are: emergent literacy, alphabetic fluency, words and patterns, intimidating reading and advanced reading. 

By placing more importance in emergent literacy and the earlier stages, it’s possible to create a safety net for students who are at risk of not reading proficiently. 

It is possible to improve literacy in schools in the earlier stages by having a classroom that: 

1. assesses every student to tailor an individualized early literacy experience for them.
2. promotes the joy of learning through activities (balanced literacy). 
3. teaches early literacy skills systematically (structured literacy).
4. empowers early learners to practice every skill learned.

What about English Language Learners?

Sprig has a Revitalization program, which promotes Indigenous and other local languages. 

Research shows that English-language development can be accelerated by making a connection between a student’s first language and English. Proficiency gained in the first language can be used to learn a second language. 

By supporting a diverse set of home languages, students are provided with a more culturally responsive educational experience. This allows them to absorb concepts more quickly. 

Prioritizing Early Literacy. Not a Magical Solution, but a Change in Focus.

At Sprig Learning, we aim to provide every child a fair shot at success. We know the importance of literacy too well, especially in the early years. 

These considerations provide a preliminary overview into the reasons and benefits for adopting an approach that specifically caters to early literacy skills. By understanding how reading skills unfold for a variety of students, a school can adopt the right approach for their classroom and educators. 

Assessments, early interventions and evidence-based activities targeting specific skills can be seamlessly integrated into the learning process.

Educators have a lot on their hands, and any new approach should support their instructional practices and make their lives easier. 

To stay updated on the science of literacy, please subscribe to our newsletter, Root to Fruit, written for those who value early childhood education. 

Have questions about using intuitive tools that make a difference in building early literacy skills? Contact us.