Few things can hold someone back in education or career plans as much as the inability to read, but the Syracuse-based Reading League says teachers aren't necessarily instructed in the best ways to teach reading.
On Monday, the literacy nonprofit, which has chapters in more than half of U.S. states, kicked off a three-day conference to do just that, based on what it calls evidence-based reading education, according to founder Maria Murray.
“It’s a vast body of interdisciplinary knowledge from cognitive psychology and communication sciences, etc. And it informs us about how the brain reads, how it learns to read, why it has difficulty learning to read sometimes, how to prevent reading difficulty, how to remediate reading difficulty. Tons of answers for us that comes from all around the world,” said Murray said.
She says a science-based approach helps students who can really struggle when they’re trying to cope with poor reading skills.
“When those kids get off those school buses today and they go inside their homes, it’s not over for them. That long day of having to fake it or try really hard and not get any better," Murray said. "It continues when that backpack has to get unpacked and they’re supposed to read a chapter, they’re supposed to read a worksheet and they can’t They can’t even do their math. So, everything academically starts to suffer."
The Reading League says that the reading marketplace is still full of misinformation and is launching the Reading League Compassto share literacy education resources and research with teachers, as well as policymakers looking for best practices for future legislative changes.
The Reading League says the two-day conference at the Oncenter includes attendees from 49 states and eight countries.
