Tag: reading

  • WEEKEND READING: The teacher training placement crisis

    WEEKEND READING: The teacher training placement crisis

    This blog was kindly authored by Juliette Claro, Lecturer in Education St Mary’s University Twickenham.

    Initial Teacher Education (ITE) providers across England are facing an escalating crisis: a growing inability to secure sufficient school placements for trainee teachers. With an average of 20 to 25% of unplaced trainee teachers, September 2025 has been challenging for universities and ITE providers. Despite policy ambitions to strengthen teacher supply, the reality on the ground is that many trainees’ hopes to start their first school placement in September were shattered due to a lack of school placements, especially in the secondary routes. This bottleneck threatens not only the future workforce but also the integrity of teacher training itself.

    A system under strain

    According to the Teacher Labour Market in England Annual Report 2025 by the National Foundation for Educational Research, recruitment into ITE remains persistently below target, with secondary subjects like Physics and Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) facing the most acute shortages. In 2024/25, Physics recruitment reached just 17% of its target, while MFL hovered at 33%. These figures reflect a long-standing trend, exacerbated by declining interest in teaching and competition from other professions.

    But even when trainees are recruited, sometimes through international routes at considerable expense, placing them in schools has become increasingly difficult. The Department for Education’s Initial Teacher Education Thematic Monitoring Visits Overview Report (2025) highlights that many providers struggle to find schools with sufficient mentor capacity and subject expertise. The report reinforced the point that mentoring pre-service teachers in schools often relies on the goodwill of teachers, and when too many providers operate in one local area, competition becomes unsustainable. This is particularly problematic in shortage subjects, where schools may lack qualified specialists to support trainees effectively, for example, in Physics or Languages.      

    Mentoring is a cornerstone of effective teacher training. Yet research in 2024 from the National Institute of Teaching (reveals that mentors are often overstretched, under-recognised, and inadequately supported. Many people report sacrificing their own planning time or juggling mentoring duties alongside full teaching loads. As a result, there may be a rise in reluctance among teachers to take on mentoring roles, especially in high-pressure environments.

    The government offers funding that aims to support mentor training and leadership, including grants for lead mentors, mentors and intensive training. However, these are often paid in arrears and come with complex conditions, making them less accessible to schools already grappling with budget constraints. Moreover, the funding does not always reflect the true cost of releasing staff from teaching duties to support trainees in schools.

    Routes into teaching: a fragmented landscape?

    The diversity of routes into teaching (School Direct, university-led PGCEs, Teach First, apprenticeships was designed to offer flexibility. But for ITE providers, it has created logistical headaches. Each route comes with its own placement requirements, mentor expectation, and funding mechanisms. Coordinating placements across this fragmented landscape is time-consuming and often leads to duplication or competition for limited school capacity.

    As universities continue to battle through their own funding crises, competition for recruitment and placements clash with other local providers and alliances of School- Centred Initial Teacher Training (SCITT), resulting in a lot of demands but not enough offers for placements.

    The 2024 ITE market reforms, which led to the de-accreditation of 68 providers, further destabilised the system. While many have partnered with accredited institutions to continue offering courses, the disruption has strained relationships between providers and with placement schools, resulting in reducing the overall number of placements available, where too many ITE providers end up saturating the same local areas for school placements.

    The subject specialist shortages

    The shortage of subject specialists is not just a recruitment issue: it is also a placement issue. In their 2025 report and recommendations for recruitment, retention and retraining the Institute of Physics (IoP)  revealed that 58% of GCSE lessons in England are taught by non-Physics specialists.

    When 25% of secondary schools do not have a Physics specialist teacher in-house and 63% of schools struggle to recruit specialist MFL teachers (British Council Language Trends 2025), it is no surprise that priorities for some school leaders is on the teaching of their students and not the mentoring trainee teachers. In many schools, Biology or Chemistry teachers cover Physics content, making it difficult to offer meaningful placements for Physics trainees. The same applies to Modern Foreign Languages, where schools often lack the breadth of language expertise needed to support trainees effectively. As non-core subjects may suffer from reduced curriculum time, finding enough teaching hours to allocate to a trainee teacher can become another challenge for some schools. Finally, as the recruitment crisis becomes more acute in more deprived areas, finding suitable mentors for trainee teachers in these areas become increasingly complex.

    Without subject specialists, trainees may be placed in environments where they cannot observe or practise high-quality teaching in their discipline. This undermines the quality of training and risks having Early Career Teachers feeling ill-prepared for the classroom.

    Teacher workload: the silent barrier

    Teacher workload remains one of the most significant barriers to placement availability. The Working Lives of Teachers and Leaders Wave 3 Report (DfE, 2025) found that 90% of teachers considering leaving the profession cited high workload as a key factor. With rising demands around behaviour management, curriculum delivery and accountability, many teachers simply do not have the bandwidth to mentor trainees. Reduced school funding, less staff and more demands on schoolteachers has meant that it is not uncommon to have weekly meetings between teachers and trainees organised out of school hours, at 8am or at 5pm, after school meetings. This is particularly acute in schools serving disadvantaged communities, where staffing pressures are greatest and the need for high-quality teaching is most urgent. Ironically, these are often the schools where trainees could have the most impact, if only they could be placed there.

    The perfect storm

    As ITE providers navigate the currents and the storms of recruiting and placing trainee teachers into schools, the strain on school funding directly impacts the recruitment of future teachers. If ITE providers cannot provide school placements, teachers and schools cannot recruit. Is it, therefore, time to reconsider and revalue the mentors in schools who are the running engine of the training process whilst on school placement? 

    New for school mentors could include:

    • Streamlining mentor funding to recognise fully and value the time spent by mentors to fulfil their role in supporting with lesson planning, giving feedback to lessons, meeting the trainee weekly and supporting international trainee teachers adapting to new curricula where necessary.
    • Invest in subject specialist development, particularly in Physics and MFL.
    • Reduce teacher workload through policy reform and flexible working arrangements where mentors can co-share the responsibility with colleagues.
    • Clarify and coordinate training routes to ease the burden on providers and schools.
    • Elevate the status of mentoring through formal recognition, qualifications, and career pathways.

    The future of teacher supply depends not just on recruitment, but on the ability to train teachers well. Without sufficient placements and adequate training, we risk building a pipeline that leaks before it flows. It is time for policymakers to recognise the strains on a suffocating system if recruitment targets are to be met.

    Source link

  • In Los Angeles, 45 Elementary Schools Beat the Odds in Teaching Kids to Read – The 74

    In Los Angeles, 45 Elementary Schools Beat the Odds in Teaching Kids to Read – The 74

    This article is part of Bright Spots, a series highlighting schools where every child learns to read, no matter their zip code. Explore the Bright Spots map to find out which schools are beating the odds in terms of literacy versus poverty rates.

    This story is part of The 74’s special coverage marking the 65th anniversary of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Read all our stories here.

    When The 74 started looking for schools that were doing a good job teaching kids to read, we began with the data. We crunched the numbers for nearly 42,000 schools across all 50 states and Washington, D.C. and identified 2,158 that were beating the odds by significantly outperforming what would be expected given their student demographics. 

    Seeing all that data was interesting. But they were just numbers in a spreadsheet until we decided to map out the results. And that geographic analysis revealed some surprising findings. 

    For example, we found that, based on our metrics, two of the three highest-performing schools in California happened to be less than 5 miles apart from each other in Los Angeles. 

    The PUC Milagro Charter School came out No. 1 in the state of California. With 91% of its students in poverty, our calculations projected it would have a third grade reading rate of 27%. Instead, 92% of its students scored proficient or above. Despite serving a high-poverty student population, the school’s literacy scores were practically off the charts.  

    PUC Milagro is a charter school, and charters tended to do well in our rankings. Nationally, they made up 7% of all schools in our sample but 11% of those that we identified as exceptional. 

    But some district schools are also beating the odds. Just miles away from PUC Milagro is our No. 3-rated school in California, Hoover Street Elementary. It is a traditional public school run by the Los Angeles Unified School District. With 92% of its students qualifying for free- or reduced-price lunch, our calculations suggest that only 23% of its third graders would likely be proficient in reading. Instead, its actual score was 78%. 

    For this project, we used data from 2024, and Hoover Street didn’t do quite as well in 2025. (Milagro continued to perform admirably.)

    Still, as Linda Jacobson reported last month, the district as a whole has been making impressive gains in reading and math over the last few years. In 2025, it reported its highest-ever performance on California’s state test. Moreover, those gains were broadly shared across the district’s most challenging, high-poverty schools. 

    Our data showed that the district as a whole slightly overperformed expectations, based purely on the economic challenges of its students. We also found that, while Los Angeles is a large, high-poverty school district, it had a disproportionately large share of what we identified as the state’s “bright spot” schools. L.A. accounted for 8% of all California schools in our sample but 16% of those that are the most exceptional. 

    All told, we found 45 L.A. district schools that were beating the odds and helping low-income students read proficiently. Some of these were selective magnet schools, but many were not. 

    INTERACTIVE

    Map of Los Angeles Area Bright Spots

    

    Some of the schools on the map may not meet most people’s definition of a good school, let alone a great one. For example, at Stanford Avenue Elementary, 47% of its third graders scored proficient in reading in 2024. That may not sound like very many, but 97% of its students are low-income, and yet it still managed to outperform the rest of the state by 4 percentage points. (It did even a bit better in 2025.)
    

    Schools like Stanford Avenue Elementary don’t have the highest scores in California. On the surface, they don’t look like they’re doing anything special. But that’s why it’s important for analyses like ours to consider a school’s demographics. High-poverty elementary schools that are doing a good job of helping their students learn to read deserve to be celebrated for their results.
    

                    
    
                                    
    

    Did you use this article in your work?
    

    
    

    We’d love to hear how The 74’s reporting is helping educators, researchers, and policymakers. Tell us how



    Source link

  • Fla. Board Says Syllabi, Reading Lists Must Be Posted Publicly

    Fla. Board Says Syllabi, Reading Lists Must Be Posted Publicly

    Already, the University of Florida requires professors to post their syllabi online—but only three days prior to the start of class.

    Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Liudmila Chernetska, Davizro and DenisTangneyJr/iStock/Getty Images

    Faculty at all Florida public universities must now make syllabi, as well as a list of required or recommended textbooks and instructional materials for each class, available online and searchable for students and the general public for five years.

    The new policy is part of an amendment to the Florida Board of Governors’ regulation on “Textbook and Instructional Materials Affordability and Transparency,” and it passed unanimously without discussion at a board meeting Thursday. On the agenda item description, board officials cited improved transparency as the impetus for the rule, which is meant to help students “make informed decisions as they select courses.” But some faculty members say it’s designed to chill academic freedom and allow the public to police what professors teach in the classroom.

    “Many of my colleagues and I believe that this is yet another overreach by political appointees to let Florida’s faculty know that they are being watched for potentially teaching any content that the far right finds problematic,” said John White, a professor of English education and literacy at the University of North Florida. He said officials at his institution told faculty members they must upload their syllabi for 2026 spring semester classes to Simple Syllabus, an online syllabi hosting platform, by December.

    “Florida’s universities are being run in an Orwellian manner, and working as a faculty member in Florida is increasingly like living in the world of Fahrenheit 451,” he said.

    According to the approved amendment, professors must post the syllabi “as early as is feasible” but no fewer than 45 days prior to the start of class. Public syllabi must include “course curriculum, required and recommended textbooks and instructional materials, goals and student expectations of the course, and how student performance will be measured and evaluated, including the grading scale.” Individualized courses like independent study and theses are exempt from the rule.

    The Florida Board of Governors did not respond to Inside Higher Ed’s questions about the amended policy, including a question about when it will start being enforced.

    Concerns About Faculty Safety

    It’s not a unique policy, even in Florida. Since 2013, the University of Florida has required professors to post their syllabi online—but only three days prior to the start of class, and they have to remain publicly available for just three semesters. Now, all Florida public universities, including the University of Florida, must follow the new rules. A UF spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed the university is waiting for the Board of Governors to share guidance about when the new policy will be enforced.

    “Even before the rule, most faculty members have been posting anyway to advertise their course. Faculty members in fact prefer to post in advance and certainly have nothing against posting,” said Meera Sitharam, a professor in the department of computer and information science and engineering, and president of the University of Florida’s 2,150-member United Faculty of Florida union. The faculty she spoke with primarily took issue with the new 45-day deadline, which is “quite early for a posting containing all the details” of a syllabus, she said. They are also concerned that they will no longer be able to make changes to reading lists midsemester.

    “A good-quality discussion class would permit the instructor to assign new reading as the course proceeds. This would now be disallowed,” Sitharam said. “The effect of this is likely to be that an overlong reading list is posted by the faculty member just to make sure that they don’t miss anything they might want to assign. And much of the reading list may never be assigned.”

    Texas similarly requires all faculty at public institutions to make a version of their syllabus public. Indiana implemented a law in July requiring public institutions to publish all course syllabi on their websites, and this fall, the University System of Georgia introduced a new policy requiring faculty to post syllabi and curriculum vitae on institution websites.

    Some faculty members in those states have seen firsthand the risks of posting syllabi online; several professors have been harassed and doxed over course content in their online syllabi. Florida faculty are concerned the same thing could happen to them; several faculty members believe that the board passed the rule with the intent of siccing the general public on professors who teach about topics that conservative politicians don’t like.

    “The sole purpose is to subcontract out the oversight of all of our courses, so that if there’s some independent entity or individual that wants to look at the College of Education at Florida State, and they spend two months doing a deep dive into all of the classes, then they’ll come up with: ‘Here at Florida State we found these five classes that don’t meet [our standards],’” said William Trapani, communications and multimedia studies professor at Florida Atlantic University. “Why else would you have that capacity to make this data bank and make it publicly accessible for five years?”

    Stan Kaye, a professor emeritus of design and technology at the University of Florida, sees concerns about the policy as overblown. “I cannot see why making syllabi public at a public institution is a problem for anyone—I would think that promoting your work and subject is generally a good thing,” he said. “If you are afraid you are teaching something illegal or that lacks academic integrity and you want to keep it secret, that should be a problem.”

    Faculty safety is the primary concern for James Beasley, an associate professor of English and president of the faculty association at North Florida.

    “The most important issue related to this requirement is the safety of our faculty, both online and in person. The concern is that faculty will be exposed to external trolls of course content and that the publication of course locations will expose faculty to location disclosures,” Beasley said in an email. While it is typical for syllabi to include course meeting times and locations, the new board policy does not require that information to be posted online.

    Trapani also said that because of the five-year syllabus retention period, faculty are worried they could be retroactively harassed for teaching about something the public finds unfavorable from a class several years ago. White has similar concerns.

    “I’m teaching a course that utilizes neo-Marxist theory to critique the idea of meritocracy—will the Board of Governors or members of the public falsely claim I’m teaching communism or that I’m teaching students to hate their country? If a history professor or a social studies education professor is discussing redlining or Jim Crow laws, will they later be critiqued for teaching students about institutionalized racism or sexism?” White said.

    Ultimately, Trapani believes the amended syllabi policy is an attempt to insulate the Board of Governors from public criticism.

    “Florida will make a lot more sense to outsiders if its policymaking is viewed through a lens of fear,” he said. “They’ve deputized an army of outsiders to pore through records older than most students’ time at the university—all so that they cannot be accused of missing something … It’s just another way in which faculty employment conditions and physical safety are made more precarious by the endless barrage of false claims about our teaching practices.”

    Josh Moody contributed to this report.

    Source link

  • WEEKEND READING: The future of languages in a multilingual Britain

    WEEKEND READING: The future of languages in a multilingual Britain

    This blog was kindly authored by John Claughton, Co-Founder of The World of Languages and Languages of the World and former Chief Master of King Edward’s School, Birmingham.

    The other day, there was a big crowd packed into the Attlee Room in Portcullis House to celebrate the European Day of Languages – it was a comfort that no one had deemed it necessary to wear a sombrero or lederhosen. It was a co-production by the All Party Parliamentary Group for Languages and the All Party Parliamentary Group for Europe. The French and EU Ambassadors to London were the guests of honour, and the meeting was chaired by that rara avis, Darren Paffey, an MP who had been a languages academic. And he even has a wife who teaches languages. Is there, after all, a candle of hope for us all?

    The event was, like Gaul, divided into three parts. The first part was the noble land of diplomacy, with emphasis on the need for mutual understanding, co-operation and mobility in pursuit of global prosperity and harmony. At least everyone agreed that it was time for Erasmus to return – the programme, not the author of In Praise of Folly.

    Part Two was less to do with the noble sentiments of the Republic of Plato than the sewers of Romulus. It was about the grim facts of language learning presented by Megan Bowler, the harbinger of darkness, who wrote the HEPI report on the ‘language crisis’:

    • only 3% of A-level entries are in languages, and a mighty slug of those would come from independent schools;
    • undergraduate enrolments in languages are down by 20% in five years;
    • language teacher recruitment is less than half of what it needs to be;
    • there would still be language teacher shortages if every languages graduate went into teaching.
    • 28 out of 38 post-1992 universities have closed their language departments:
    • it is now quite common for Oxbridge colleges to get fewer than 10 applicants each for languages. That’s less than Classics, by Jove.

    Nor did the recent announcement about the end of IB funding bring any cheer: after all, every IB pupil has to study a language between the ages of 16 to 18.

    After the cold wind of reality had blown through the room, Vicky Gough, the Schools Adviser at the British Council, and Bernardette Holmes, the Director of the National College for Language Education (NCLE), talked of the tracks across this bleak terrain which might lead to better days. The HEPI report itself makes ten recommendations, and there are clearly things that universities can do to make languages more appealing – ‘Bring back Erasmus,’ they cry. However, the future of languages in university cannot lie in the hands of universities. The landscape can only be changed by a fundamental rethink about the teaching of languages at the very beginning of this journey. And that rethink has to reflect the fundamental change that has taken place in the pupils who now sit in our classes. Here are some ‘facts’ which show that fundamental change:

    • 20% of primary school pupils are categorised as EAL, i.e. English is not their first language;
    • this figure materially understates the percentage of pupils who are multilingual in our schools: for example, I know that over 50% of the pupils in the school where I was head were bilingual, even though none of them were categorised as EAL.
    • in many areas of many of our cities, there are primary schools where 90% of pupils are classed as EAL pupils.
    • there are many, many schools in London, or Birmingham, or Leicester, or Bradford where 30, or 40, or even 50 languages are spoken.
    • the schools with the greatest linguistic diversity are very often the schools in the most disadvantaged areas, areas where language uptake is at its lowest.

    And yet, little or no attention, or regard or honour is given to these languages, or to the pupils that speak them. Instead, in 96% of primary schools, it is French or Spanish which is taught, often by primary school teachers who don’t even have a GCSE in the subject. It may be no surprise that too few pupils arrive keen to study a language at GCSE when their language experience has been limited and, to their already multilingual minds, irrelevant.

    So, if there is to be progress, if there is to be a halt in the decline in languages and in the regard for languages, the answer may not lie in doing a bit better what we have always done, but in doing something different. If primary school pupils were taught not French and Spanish, but about languages, their own languages, as well as English and ‘modern foreign languages’ – and even Latin – the following things might happen:

    • pupils might see that languages are relevant, interesting, valuable, even fun;
    • pupils might learn more about themselves and each other, engendering mutual understanding and respect;
    • pupils might feel that they belong in school, and feel that there is not so great a gap between their life at home and their life at school;
    • parents might feel that what was going on at school had some regard for their history and their culture;
    • pupils might be more inclined to study languages, whether their own family/heritage language, and this could be a massive asset for their futures, in human and economic terms;
    • and, as these young people grow up, they might become the kind of adults who can build an integrated, cohesive, respectful and diverse society, and thus silence the voices of division in our political debate.
    • and this approach would demolish the hierarchy of languages which has so beset us for so long.

    Thus, it would place languages at the heart of our society. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? By strange chance, I have been working with some colleagues for several years to create a programme that does just that, but I’ve reached my word limit.

    But wait, dear reader. As a special dispensation, I have been granted more words in a HEPI blog. O frabjous day. So, I’d better be quick. It’s called WoLLoW, World of Languages, Languages of the World, a brilliant palindromic acronym with an Egyptian faience hippopotamus as a logo – just look at all those Greek words – in honour of the Hippopotamus Song by Flanders and Swan. So, if that’s its wondrous name, what does it do? Well, here are some examples:

    • a WoLLoW lesson can encourage boys and girls to talk about their own language, their own family, their own history.
    • it can explore why and how English is the most mongrel of all languages, a dog’s breakfast of Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Viking, Norman French, and polysyllabic Graeco-Latin inventions.
    • it can prove that the pupils can learn the Greek alphabet more quickly than their teachers, and thereby discover why physics isn’t spelt fisiks and dinosaurs have such preposterous names.
    • it can ask why Tuesday is Tuesday here and lots of different things everywhere else – and a WoLLoW lesson might even ask why there are seven days in a week.
    • in a WoLLoW lesson pupils can learn braille and/or sign-language, or even create their own language.

    This looks quite good fun, and it turns out that it is. Another word limit looms, but I can say that it not only cheers up pupils but it also has an impact on those who teach it. The last of my words must go to a pupil at my old school, a Malaysian Muslim, who, whilst in Year 11, taught WoLLoW in a local, Birmingham primary school:

    Working on these lessons, from the very first session, has not only given the children we have taught the opportunity to have their languages and cultures represented in class discussions, but has also allowed me to reconnect with my language and feel more confident in reclaiming it as a part of who I am. I am someone who, like, I suspect, a lot of the children we have taught, has felt disconnected from his language for a long time, and has been given the chance to once again put it front and centre and find their sense of self within it again.

    The rest is silence.

    Source link

  • WEEKEND READING: A thousand days of silence: reclaiming education through localisation for Afghan women

    WEEKEND READING: A thousand days of silence: reclaiming education through localisation for Afghan women

    This blog was kindly authored by Naimat Zafary, PhD student at The University of Sussex and a former Afghan Chevening Scholar.

    As I mark my fifth year in UK higher education, a journey that began with a Chevening Scholarship and an MA at the Institute of Development Studies before leading to my PhD in the School of Global Studies at the University of Sussex, a single, recurring image encapsulates a profound contrast.

    From my study window on campus, I watch the vibrant flow of students: a tide of ambition pouring into and out of lecture halls. In a silent, personal ritual, I often count them. Invariably, I find more young women than men, a sight that swells me with pride to be part of an institution that offers equal and abundant opportunities to female students.

    Yet, this everyday scene instantly transports me to my home of Afghanistan, where this picture is hauntingly absent. For nearly three years – around 1,050 days – the Taliban has barred Afghan girls and women from their fundamental right to higher education. Their university campuses, once symbols of hope, are now forbidden ground.

    Beyond internationalisation

    The start of the academic year is a time of new beginnings for UK universities. There is a mood of anticipation, proudly announcing numbers of new starters and, on my own diverse campus, a commitment to internationalisation. Students arrive from across the world, a myriad of stories behind each of them. For some, a struggle, for others, lifelong dreams of individuals and families.

    If we are lucky, we will share some of these experiences and perspectives with the people around us. We will define our possibilities differently as a result. This focus on global reach is commendable and a deep privilege. We are – we become – international.

    But I ask myself a sharper question too. What of those who do not, cannot travel? How do we consider the community which includes the missing, the trapped?

    So, as I look across campus, I see these faces too. Will institutions that are committed and measured in part in relation to the sustainable development goals –  every one of which is behind – take a step to localise, to go to those who cannot come to them?

    British higher education has a long history of outreach. Many of its now great universities began as an effort to take learning and opportunity to provinces where it was absent, or to include within its potential those who, at one time, were told education was not for them.

    That widening participation agenda is now under strain at home and abroad. If you measure the outcomes only of those blessed with an environment and the support to succeed, you implant a bias away from risk. If you effectively close off the means of access, the hopeful will turn away. Participation can narrow as well as widen. In some cases, participation can stall completely –  those desperate to continue their dreams, whose voices are screaming to be heard, and who are simply waiting for a chance?

    Who will answer the call?

    In the worst of times, those who step forward, demonstrate they care and –  despite their own challenges – stand against this injustice are living the most profound values of education.

    Here again, I look out at my campus at The University of Sussex with pride, and I believe there are lessons for others too.

    It begins with leadership and with kind-hearted teams, but also a desire to turn feeling into action. In this case, despite headwinds of practical barriers, the university has undertaken a pilot and has awarded online distance learning master’s degree scholarships for a small group of talented Afghan women and girls.

    The inspiration for this initiative was born out of a stark contrast. As female Afghan Chevening scholars walked across the Sussex graduation stage with pride, in Afghanistan, not a single woman could enter a university, let alone a graduation ceremony. I longed for those with the potential of taking action to hear the voices of Afghan women and somehow open a door, even for just a few.

    Developing an outreach programme in such a sensitive context isn’t easy. Universities have their own urgent challenges close to home, and the many demands they face don’t pause while they innovate in global education.  But principled leaders took the challenge of the absence of women in higher education a world away to their own core, and recognised that this too was their business. 

    Finding a possible solution took time: more than two years of proposals; assessing the situation; back-and-forth communication; and ensuring we were always working in line with advice on ensuring the safety of participating students. It was modest, but it matters beyond words.

    The logic was beautifully simple and necessary: if Afghan women are banned from stepping into the higher education arena, then higher education must step into their own room. This is a practice the Western world embraced during the pandemic; we simply need to apply it now to find a light in the darkness.

    An undefeated hope

    The proof of this need was instantaneous. In early July 2025, the University of Sussex’s announcement went live. Within the first 48 hours, more than eight hundred women and women sent an inquiry and applied for the scholarships.

    That response sent a clear, undeniable message of a thirst and love for education, of persistent talent, eligibility, and an undefeated hope for the future. And now it begins. The five talented women awarded these scholarships have started on the first of these courses with an unwavering commitment.

    One of the awardees described her gratitude this way:

    As an Afghan woman achieving this milestone under such challenging circumstances has been both difficult and deeply meaningful. I am committed to making the most of this opportunity and to using the knowledge and skills I gain to contribute toward strengthening and supporting our fragile communities.

    These students are proof that Afghan women are not defeated even in this brutal hour. They may have to learn behind legal bars for now, but they believe in a better future, they are determined to serve their community and contribute to wider society — given the chance, they will change their lives and the lives of those around them.

    Deeds not words

    To my colleagues and friends in UK higher education, I humbly say this. Our institutions are built on the foundational motto of “leaving no one behind” – no one, not even the women whose doors are bolted but whose spirits still crave learning.

    I profoundly hope the UKhigher education community will look closely at the successful case of the University of Sussex, draw on the experience of this pilot and follow its lead. One programme could become many. A single voice could become a chorus.

    Afghan girls and women are navigating one of the most catastrophic times in their history. The education of women is core to the UN Sustainable Development Goals for good reason. Those who step up now, who provide a lifeline through education in this moment of darkness, will not only be remembered – they will be helping to shape the very future of Afghanistan. As the suffragists once chanted in this country, this is a time for Deeds Not Words.

    I ask each of you not to write off hope.  A dear friend shared a poem with me, which is much loved across this country. It was written by the great War poet Siegfried Sassoon at a time of despair, but it continues to move people because it defiantly imagines a time of release and redemption.

    Everyone suddenly burst out singing;

    And I was filled with such delight As prisoned birds must find in freedom…

    My heart was shaken with tears; and horror Drifted away … O, but Everyone

    Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.

    There are times a university keeps hope alive, where a pilot programme is a flame visible across the world. It is the promise of a better future through the empowerment of those who wish desperately to build it.

    A good deed can be multiplied. If Afghan women students cannot come to us, let us join together as a band of scholars and go to them.

    If any university colleagues would be interested in understanding more about the Sussex pilot to offer online postgraduate access to Afghan women, please contact [email protected].

    Source link

  • WEEKEND READING: Axing IB funding in the state sector harms our ambitions for higher-level education and training

    WEEKEND READING: Axing IB funding in the state sector harms our ambitions for higher-level education and training

    This blog was kindly authored by Richard Markham, Chief Executive Officer of the IB Schools and Colleges Association (IBSCA).

    At International Baccalaureate (IB) schools and colleges, we have always been ambitious for our students. We know what they can achieve and support them to reach their goals. Through its broad curriculum – including Maths, English, a humanities, science, arts and language subject – the IB Diploma Programme (DP) provides stretch and challenge, developing a thirst for lifelong learning in our 16 to 19-year-olds. And, through extended essays, theory of knowledge and service in the community, it produces confident, well-rounded citizens who thrive in life and work. Year after year, we join our students and their families in celebrating their outstanding destinations at top universities and apprenticeships.

    That is why it is deeply disappointing that the Government is axing the financial uplift for schools and colleges delivering the IB DP in the state sector, as soon as the next academic year.

    Disappointing, but also surprising. By axing the large programme uplift – the top-up funding awarded to schools and colleges to reflect the additional teaching time required to deliver the IB DP – the Government risks tripping over its own hurdles. The post-16 white paper sets “objectives” for the 16-19 sector, with the first being that it “delivers world-leading provision that breaks down the barriers to opportunity”. The imminent final report of the Curriculum and Assessment Review will set out its recommendations to ensure that “every child” has “access to a broad range of subjects”.  

    On this front, it is vital that we keep the IB alive in the state sector. Far more extensive than A Levels, T Levels and now V Levels, the IB proves that creativity is not the preserve of the arts, nor logic the preserve of science. Both belong together in world-class education. It is a rigorous, aspirational study programme, offering all the advantages of a private school education, accessible to families who couldn’t dream of affording tuition. We should be expanding opportunities to an IB education, not shutting them down.

    The second objective set for further education is that it supports the Government’s “ambition for two-thirds of young people to participate in higher-level learning” after they leave school. IB DP students in the UK are three times more likely to enrol in a top-20 higher education institution. Deep thinkers, broad skill sets – they excel at university-level study. DP students are 40% more likely to achieve a first-class or upper second-class honours degree. If the Government does not find a way through, the higher education sector will be poorer for it.

    Moreover, UCAS data from the 2021/24 cycles gives us an indication of just how well the IB DP supports progression into courses that closely align with the UK’s Industrial Strategy priority sectors. The greatest proportion of DP students (4,900) accepted university offers in courses related to the life sciences sector, driven by medicine, dentistry and nursing. This was closely followed by professional and business services – with 3,365accepted offers for subjects like economics, law, management and politics – and upwards of 1,000 accepted offers in crucial science and engineering courses.

    Evidently, this is a financial decision, not one taken in the best interests of our education and skills system. To dress it up in any other way does our educators a disservice. The large programme uplift given to IB DP schools is worth just £2.5 million a year. That is 0.0025 per cent of the Department for Education’s £100 billion annual budget. A drop in the ocean, and yet the programme delivers true value for money.

    On Wednesday, MPs across the House united to fight for the future of the IB in Westminster Hall, calling for an urgent reversal of these cuts to provide certainty for school and college leaders, current and prospective IB students and their families, universities and employers. MPs questioned the very basis for the Department’s decision: “how can the Government can claim to want more students, particularly more girls, on STEM pathways while cutting funding for a qualification that demonstrably helps to achieve exactly that?”

    Let us not forget, it was a Labour Government under Prime Minister Tony Blair that pledged an IB school in every local authority, but subsequent Prime Ministers have recognised the value and championed a baccalaureate-style education system. Support for the IB cuts across party lines and nation’s borders – reflecting the shared values of its global community of alumni, prospective students, parents, teachers, and policymakers who see its potential to raise ambition and foster international understanding. That cross-party appeal is no accident: many MPs, former IB teachers and alumni, know first-hand what the programme can do. They recognise its power to develop deeper thinkers, broader skill sets and more adaptable young people – qualities our economy and universities urgently need right now.

    Find out more about the ‘Save the IB’ via the IBSCA website: www.ibsca.org.uk/save-the-ib-with-ibsca

    Source link

  • WEEKEND READING: The Renters’ Rights Act: How will students’ tenancies change and when?

    WEEKEND READING: The Renters’ Rights Act: How will students’ tenancies change and when?

    This blog was kindly authored by Martin Blakey, the former Chief Executive of the student housing charity Unipol and a member of the British Property Federation’s Student Accommodation Committee.

    On Wednesday, 22 October 2025, the Renters’ Rights Bill passed through its final stage in a thinly occupied Commons chamber, and obtained Royal Assent on 28 October. HEPI has taken a close interest in how the Act’s changes would affect students, and a number of previous blogs that have charted the Bill’s progress are listed at the end of this one.

    The Bill has a long history, first appearing under the previous Conservative government under the title the Renters’ Reform Bill in May 2023 and then being resubmitted, after some redrafting, by the new Labour Government only 10 weeks into power in September 2024. Even under a Labour Government with a large majority, it has taken 13 months to progress the Bill through all of its stages, and that parliamentary process has had to deal with over 450 amendments in the last year.

    This is a substantial Act, and its various provisions will be phased in over a period of time. The Act contains many enabling powers, allowing Ministers to implement more detailed proposals on aspects of policy as further consultations take place. The right to redress (the ombudsman proposals), the landlord database and the Decent Homes Standard are, or will be, consulted on and detailed regulation will appear over the next year.

    Even in the final stages of the Bill, the Government did not give any timetable for implementation. Still, it is reasonable to conclude that tenure reform, which is not subject to much secondary regulation, will be implemented first. All the Government now has to decide is how long it should allow to raise the awareness of landlords and tenants about these significant impending changes, and how long it should give to those running private sector housing to make the necessary legal adjustments for existing and future tenancies.

    Because the mechanics of the Act are now known, it is possible, for the first time, to say what will happen to student tenants and make a reasonable and educated guess at the timescale involved.

    Timescale

    It is now clear that today’s student tenants (studying across 2025/26) and new tenants signing up for the 2026/27 academic year will see their tenure status change.

    As Matthew Pennycook said on 8 September 2025:

    …we will introduce the new tenancy for the private rented sector system in one stage. On this date the new tenancy system will apply to all private tenancies – existing tenancies will convert to the new system, and any new tenancies signed on or after this date will also be governed by the new rules. Existing fixed terms will be converted to periodic tenancies…

    So, all tenancies will change on a given date and the familiar fixed-term assured tenancy (AST) which has been used by virtually all students renting from the private sector will be replaced by the new assured tenancy. The fixed term within those ASTs will cease to exist, and rent payment periods in excess of four weeks’ rent will be unenforceable.

    Depending on who you listen to, this change is likely to come into effect between April and June 2026 and so it will affect today’s student tenants.

    There are a lot of questions about how these changes will come about, and it is now possible to provide a roadmap of how this will all work.

    There are no ‘interim’ stages. So landlords signing students up in the past and now, and up to the implementation date of tenure change under the Act, will continue to use fixed-term ASTs because that is the current system.

    Landlords and tenants on current contracts or signing up for the future would best see their agreement as entering into a general contract for a residential tenancy. That tenancy will have its precise status determined, in respect of these changes, at the point when a tenant actually takes possession and can move in (which is when the tenancy is actually granted).

    So, let’s go through a variety of scenarios and see what is going to happen.

    Students currently living in off-street shared houses – a house multiple occupancy (HMO)

    These students will currently be on a joint or individual AST, almost always, with a fixed period stipulated in that agreement. On the date of the Act’s tenure implementation this will become an assured tenancy, and that means that the fixed-term nature of the agreement falls away.

    The Government accepted that, in order to maintain the lettings cycle of student shared houses in line with the academic year, landlords would be able to seek repossession of their property by using a new ground for possession 4a. This allows landlords to give tenants notice of their intention to seek repossession on a given date between June and September.

    Following implementation, landlords will have to notify tenants within the first 30 days of their intention to use ground 4a. After this transitional provision, landlords will have to notify tenants of their intention to use ground 4a at the time of signing the contract.

    Under ground 4a landlords can give tenants 4 months’ notice to leave and can enforce that through the courts.

    Some legal experts have pointed out that if implementation is between April and June, then, as many fixed-terms expire in June or July, there would not be sufficient time under ground 4a to give 4 months’ notice. So, in theory, tenants could simply choose to stay in the property and give 2 months’ notice whenever they wanted to move out. This is the case, and for the first few months of operation, landlords may find that they cannot take advantage of ground 4a –  leaving them exposed if they have let the property to a new set of tenants without having a property with vacant possession to let. Whether a court would hold a landlord responsible for any financial claim or compensation sought by incoming tenants who would have to find alternative accommodation is unlikely, particularly if the landlord had tried to mitigate any loss by, say, finding and offering alternative accommodation.

    But landlords have other things they can do to bring their tenancies to an end over the implementation period. Until the date when ASTs become assured tenancies, the landlord can still give notice using the current ‘no fault’ eviction procedure under Section 21 (S21), giving a minimum two-month notice period. A S21 notice can be given at any time after the first 4 months of the AST, so most landlords will issue a S21 notice to their resident students while the tenancy is still an AST, giving them, in most cases, a right of repossession at the end of their AST fixed term. The Renters’ Rights Act does not revoke a valid S21 notice. Only after tenure change has been implemented is it no longer possible to issue a valid S21 notice.

    So long as the landlord gives notice under S21 on an existing AST before the introduction of assured tenancies, they will be able (as they are at present) to assume that tenants leave and new tenants will arrive as normal.

    It is just worth noting that serving a notice of intention to seek repossession does not mean a tenant can be removed from the property, and only a Court can evict a tenant. This is the case now, but generally, very few students fail to leave at the end of their tenancy, so it is important not to predict problems where these have not occurred in the past.

    Students currently living in smaller off-street houses

    This is the same as stipulated above for a shared house in respect of serving a valid S21 notice, but here, once the Act has been implemented, ground 4a cannot be used because its use is restricted to only off-street HMOs. So once tenure reform has taken place and the time period for issuing S21 notices has expired, tenants in this kind of property can remain as long as they wish until they give 2 months’ notice to leave. Landlords letting these smaller houses and flats may well find that they are housing non-students.

    Several attempts were made during the discussion of the Bill to extend ground 4a to all properties occupied by students, but the Government firmly rejected that approach.

    Baroness Taylor of Stevenage made the Government’s position clear on 15 October 2025:

    The Government recognise that the new tenancy system will have an impact on the way the student market operates. While we believe the ground covers the majority of the market, there is no one-size-fits-all solution that covers all circumstances. We think it is reasonable that the ground will apply to full-time students in larger house-share situations. Removing this restriction could lead to students who need more security of tenure – such as single parents living with their children or postgraduate couples living together who have put down roots in the area – being evicted more regularly.

    So the Government expects that some property previously occupied by students is likely to remain occupied, and this stock will therefore leave the student market and enter the general rental market.

    Students living in off-street housing after implementation

    These students will have assured tenancy status and will fall fully under the provisions of the new Act. With the exception of ground 4a in shared student houses, they will be able to stay as long as they wish in the property until they give notice and will be able to give 2 months’ notice, at any stage of the year, to leave the property.

    Currently, they will be signed up using ASTs but after implementation, most of those tenure conditions will be replaced by the provisions of the new Act.

    Students currently living in Purpose Built Student Accommodation (PBSA)

    The Government decided that private PBSA that had signed up to the government-approved codes of practice (The ANUK/Unipol Code) should be removed from the effects of the Act by changing ‘specified educational institutions’ to ‘specified institutions’ under provisions to be found in the 1988 Housing Act. This technical change means that PBSA providers will become specified institutions (as most educational institutions already are) and their tenancies will be common law tenancies, and this means that fixed-term tenancies can continue in those properties.

    But existing contracts in private sector PBSA will go through a ‘transitional period’ because only tenancies granted after specified status has been granted will be common law tenancies.

    As the Government explained:

    To apply the exemption retrospectively would carry significant risk, as it would turn one of these existing PBSA tenancies into what is known as a ‘common law’ tenancy: that is, a tenancy almost entirely regulated by what is in the tenancy agreement. This could cause unintended consequences, such as those PBSA tenancies containing significantly fewer rights for tenants than the assured shorthold tenancies they will have signed… We do not consider it to be the right approach, therefore, to simply exempt pre-existing PBSA tenancies from assured tenancy status.

    So existing AST tenancies in PBSA will fall under the assured tenancy status. After specified status has been granted (which will be from the date of tenure implementation) then future tenancies will be common law tenancies.

    The Government made some special concessions to minimise these ‘transitional effects’. This means the property will not have to be an HMO to use ground 4a repossession, and the July to September time frame 4a will not apply.

    PBSA providers will still be able to use S21 notices (as detailed previously) before implementation, and after that they will be able to use new ground 4a on all PBSA properties. This is likely to be useful because tenancies ending in September (mainly relating to studios) will allow sufficient time to give those tenants 4 months’ notice under the new Act.

    There will still be a moment of anxiety if a student who is not issued with a S21 notice decides simply to stay, although they could be given 4 months’ notice under new ground 4a at any stage after implementation. This risk is, however, much lower for PBSA where it is likely, if any inconvenience occurred for incoming tenants because of a ‘stayer’, that alternative accommodation may be available to be provided within the same building or in a nearby building, so the risk to the provider will be mitigated.

    Students signing up to live in Purpose Built Student Accommodation (PBSA) in the future

    At present, students will continue to be signed up on ASTs because that is the current system.

    As mentioned previously, any new tenancy will have its status determined by when a tenant ‘takes possession’ and can move in (which is when the tenancy is actually granted). If the moving-in date occurs after the PBSA manager / supplier has specified status, then tenants will have a common law tenancy. This common law tenancy means that the terms of the letting are those outlined in the tenancy agreement between the tenant and the landlord, and these will fall outside of the tenure provisions of the Act, which applies primarily to assured tenancies. A common law tenancy allows for fixed-term tenancies where repossession can be granted on the contractual terms outlined in the tenancy agreement, and rent payment periods will be as detailed in the tenancy.

    Although tenants in PBSA will have fewer rights under the Act than other tenants, membership of the Approved Code will ensure deposit protection continues and that tenants can give 4 weeks’ notice if they fail to get their required grades and no longer need their accommodation, if they stop studying and leave the institution, or they withdraw because of illness. The Code complaints system has also been tightened and improved. So tenants renting from PBSA will still see an improvement in tenure flexibility.

    Most tenancies in PBSA for 2026/27 are likely to be common law tenancies because they will come into effect after specified status has been granted.

    Conclusion

    So long as implementation takes place around April to June 2026, the annual summer 2026 changeover should be relatively smooth. The use of S21 notices by landlords is likely to be widespread and should ensure most tenancies can be brought to an end. In the unlikely event that implementation is earlier than April, then the 4 months’ notice under new ground 4a can also be used.

    The danger area relates to off-street non-HMOs and how many of those students, or ex-students, will choose to stay, reducing that supply of housing to future students. The prediction is that, over a couple of letting cycles, much of this type of housing will join the mainstream housing rental stock and move outside of the timing of the academic cycle. Educational institutions and students’ unions would be wise to try to monitor that shift and any loss of this accommodation to determine its effect on admissions.

    One interesting provision, regarding the use of ground 4a is that, for future signings, it will not apply if students signed their contracts 6 months before they can move in. It will be interesting to see whether this has any impact on ‘early letting’ in the off-street market and whether this impacts current PBSA practices.

    What can educational institutions and their students’ unions do to assist in the smooth implementation of the Act?

    Anything to do with tenure is necessarily complex, but every effort should be made to explain to students what this change will mean for them. What information exists suggests that student awareness of the Act is very low, with StuRents reporting that 69% of students said they had never heard of the Renters Rights Bill, and only 15% saying they understood how it could affect them. A recent study by Unipol also reported that 62% of students had not heard of the Bill.

    There will be real and immediate advantages for student renters who will be on assured tenancies, such as the ability to give two months’ notice and, perhaps the biggest gain of all for hard-up students, only needing to pay rent four weeks in advance. In the longer term, they will also have minimum standards set under the Decent Homes Standard and will have a right of redress through an ombudsman.

    Of course, some may temper these immediate advantages by predicting that the Act will see a reduction in student housing supply resulting in rent rises, an increase in the use of guarantors with rising deposit levels (to counter-act the risk of shorter rent payment periods) and that most shared student houses (HMOs) already fall under licencing which should already ensure that the property is safe and being kept in good order.

    The reality is that no one knows how the Act will affect the market and students specifically. With that in mind, it will be important for institutions to try to monitor how the Act affects their students in their local property market.

    In PBSA, the Act will have less effect, but this also comes at a time of rapid change in that market, with issues such as a slow-down in development; the challenges of keeping ageing stock up to standard; the growth of commuter students; greater regulation post-Grenfell with the Building Safety Regulator; and problems associated with higher rent levels and affordability.

    These market and legislative changes will mean that both housing suppliers and students are likely to see a significant transformation of student housing over the next couple of years. It is important that advice about housing rights and supply reflects those changes and assumptions that ‘things will continue as before’ are set aside.

    Previous HEPI publications dealing with this issue are:

    Renters (Reform) Bill and the impact on higher education 24 May 2023 by Rose Stephenson https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2023/05/24/renters-reform-bill-and-the-impact-on-higher-education/

    How the Renters (Reform) Bill can deliver for all tenants – including students 13 November 2023 by Calum MacInnes https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2023/11/13/how-the-renters-reform-bill-can-deliver-for-all-tenants-including-students/

    Students and the Renters (Reform) Bill: the government has listened but it needs to listen some more parts I and II run across 29 and 30 January 2024 by Martin Blakey https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2024/01/29/students-and-the-renters-reform-bill-the-government-has-listened-but-it-needs-to-listen-some-more-part-i/ and https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2024/01/30/students-and-the-renters-reform-bill-the-government-has-listened-but-it-needs-to-listen-some-more-part-ii/

    The Renters Reform Bill: after the fall – Where should student housing go from here? 19 June 2024 by Martin Blakey https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2024/06/19/the-renters-reform-bill-after-the-fall-where-should-student-housing-go-from-here

    Renters’ Rights Bill and Student Accommodation: The Final Stretch? 9 October 2024 by Martin Blakey https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2024/10/09/renters-rights-act-and-student-accommodation-the-final-stretch/

    Renters’ Rights Bill Update – into the Lords 2 February 2025 by Martin Blakey https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2025/02/03/renters-rights-bill-update-into-the-lords/

    Source link

  • 3 strategies to boost student reading fluency this school year

    3 strategies to boost student reading fluency this school year

    Key points:

    With the new school year now rolling, teachers and school leaders are likely being hit with a hard truth: Many students are not proficient in reading.

    This, of course, presents challenges for students as they struggle to read new texts and apply what they are learning across all subject areas, as well as for educators who are diligently working to support students’ reading fluency and overall academic progress. 

    Understanding the common challenges students face with reading–and knowing which instructional strategies best support their growth–can help educators more effectively get students to where they need to be this school year.

    Understanding the science of learning

    Many districts across the country have invested in evidence-based curricula grounded in the science of reading to strengthen how foundational skills such as decoding and word recognition are taught. However, for many students, especially those receiving Tier 2 and Tier 3 interventions, this has not been enough to help them develop the automatic word recognition needed to become fluent, confident readers.

    This is why coupling the science of reading with the science of learning is so important when it comes to reading proficiency. Simply stated, the science of learning is how students learn. It identifies the conditions needed for students to build automaticity and fluency in complex skills, and it includes principles such as interleaving, spacing practice, varying tasks, highlighting contrasts, rehearsal, review, and immediate feedback–all of which are essential for helping students consolidate and generalize their reading skills.

    When these principles are intentionally combined with the science of reading’s structured literacy principles, students are able to both acquire new knowledge and retain, retrieve, and apply it fluently in new contexts.

    Implementing instructional best practices

    The three best practices below not only support the use of the science of learning and the science of reading, but they give educators the data and information needed to help set students up for reading success this school year and beyond. 

    Screen all students. It is important to identify the specific strengths and weaknesses of each student as early as possible so that educators can personalize their instruction accordingly.

    Some students, even those in upper elementary and middle school, may still lack foundational skills, such as decoding and automatic word recognition, which in turn negatively impact fluency and comprehension. Using online screeners that focus on decoding skills, as well as automatic word recognition, can help educators more quickly understand each student’s needs so they can efficiently put targeted interventions in place to help.

    Online screening data also helps educators more effectively communicate with parents, as well as with a student’s intervention team, in a succinct and timely way.

    Provide personalized structured, systematic practice. This type of practice has been shown to help close gaps in students’ foundational skills so they can successfully transfer their decoding and automatic word recognition skills to fluency. The use of technology and online programs can optimize the personalization needed for students while providing valuable insights for teachers.

    Of course, when it comes to personalizing practice, technology should always enhance–not replace–the role of the teacher. Technology can help differentiate the questions and lessons students receive, track students’ progress, and engage students in a non-evaluative learning environment. However, the personal attention and direction given by a teacher is always the most essential aid, especially for struggling readers. 

    Monitor progress on oral reading. Practicing reading aloud is important for developing fluency, although it can be very personal and difficult for many struggling learners. Students may get nervous, embarrassed, or lose their confidence. As such, the importance of a teacher’s responsiveness and ongoing connection while monitoring the progress of a student cannot be overstated.

    When teachers establish the conditions for a safe and trusted environment, where errors can occur without judgment, students are much more motivated to engage and read aloud. To encourage this reading, teachers can interleave passages of different lengths and difficulty levels, or revisit the same text over time to provide students with spaced opportunities for practice and retrieval. By providing immediate and constructive feedback, teachers can also help students self-correct and refine their skills in real time.

    Having a measurable impact

    All students can become strong, proficient readers when they are given the right tools, instruction, and support grounded in both the science of learning and the science of reading. For educators, this includes screening effectively, providing structured and personalized practice, and creating environments where students feel comfortable learning and practicing skills and confident reading aloud.

    By implementing these best practices, which take into account both what students need to learn and how they learn best, educators can and will make a measurable difference in students’ reading growth this school year.

    Latest posts by eSchool Media Contributors (see all)

    Source link

  • Young men are increasingly lonely and isolated. Could reading more to boys be the answer?

    Young men are increasingly lonely and isolated. Could reading more to boys be the answer?

    by JT Torres, The Hechinger Report
    October 28, 2025

    Young men in America today are feeling lonely and socially isolated. They are not going to college, entering the workplace or going on dates as often as young men did in prior generations.

    In my years teaching literacy, I’ve watched the lines on two graphs move in opposite directions: male loneliness climbs as male reading and writing scores drop. Are these trends correlated, and if so, can reading help address loneliness?

    Diminished friendships, reduced economic opportunities and the substitution of online interactions for face-to-face connections seem to particularly impact young men.

    Some 25 percent of U.S. men aged 15-34 felt lonely “a lot of the previous day,” compared to 18 percent of women in the same age group, a recent Gallup survey found. The same survey found that U.S. men are lonelier than their international counterparts.

    Overlaying this epidemic of loneliness is a literacy crisis that continues to deepen, evidenced by sharp declines in the 2024 NAEP results. Only 35 percent of high school seniors now read at or above proficiency, with reading scores 10 points lower than they were in 1992. The numbers reflect not just skill deficits but broader cultural shifts.

    Related: A lot goes on in classrooms from kindergarten to high school. Keep up with our free weekly newsletter on K-12 education.

    In the UK, a country with similar male loneliness rates, just 41 percent of parents with children under five read frequently to them, down from 64 percent in 2012, a 2024 Harper Collins UK survey found. The survey revealed even sharper reading drops for boys: Less than one-third from birth through the age of 2 were read to daily, compared to 44 percent of girls. Meanwhile, the number of American adolescent boys who read for fun has dropped to a historic low.

    Literacy instruction has not kept up with changes in the literacy landscape, and is failing to help students connect, think carefully and resist manipulation. Traditional reading and argument, for instance, have been dramatically replaced by memes and misinformation that spreads faster than anyone can correct it. Public discourse has become inflammatory rather than inquisitive, with half-quotes from podcasters and political pundits lobbed like verbal grenades.

    These two trends have serious social costs, and may reinforce each other. Data show, for example, that as young men fall behind in education, they become increasingly attracted to conspiratorial thinking and political radicalization.

    Combining a lack of critical reading skills and habits with an unsatisfied need to bond, to connect and to belong results in an emotional feedback loop, driving young men into spaces designed to persuade or recruit rather than inform.

    Related: Behind the latest dismal NAEP scores

    Thus, while it is tempting to treat literacy and male loneliness as separate issues, research demonstrating the social benefits of reading to children offers interesting connective tissue. Neuroscience research confirms, for example, that reading aloud activates brain regions associated with both language processing and social bonding. Respondents to an international survey described reading as a method for maintaining social connection.

    Young boys need these benefits at this very moment.

    That is why I strongly believe that one simple way we can and should address these trends is to inspire interest in reading among boys.

    Parents, teachers, guardians, siblings and anyone who takes care of children should read to and with them. Longstanding cultural norms reward girls for reading but not boys. Literacy needs to be framed not as a gendered expectation or duty but as a relational ritual.

    Schools need to do more than prepare students for literacy tests; they should create formal spaces to enjoy reading, including book clubs, intergenerational reading groups and classes which show that reading is not a solitary grind but a communal act. The solution I propose is fairly cheap, carries no risk and is backed by evidence: Treat reading as the most important social experience children can have.

    JT Torres is director of the Harte Center for Teaching and Learning at Washington and Lee University.

    Contact the opinion editor at [email protected].

    This story about male reading and loneliness was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.

    This <a target=”_blank” href=”https://hechingerreport.org/opinion-young-men-are-increasingly-lonely-isolated-and-reading-less/”>article</a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https://hechingerreport.org”>The Hechinger Report</a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.<img src=”https://i0.wp.com/hechingerreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/cropped-favicon.jpg?fit=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”>

    <img id=”republication-tracker-tool-source” src=”https://hechingerreport.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=113065&amp;ga4=G-03KPHXDF3H” style=”width:1px;height:1px;”><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https://hechingerreport.org/opinion-young-men-are-increasingly-lonely-isolated-and-reading-less/”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } </script> <script id=”parsely-cfg” src=”//cdn.parsely.com/keys/hechingerreport.org/p.js”></script>

    Source link

  • Why one reading expert says ‘just-right’ books are all wrong

    Why one reading expert says ‘just-right’ books are all wrong

    by Jill Barshay, The Hechinger Report
    October 27, 2025

    Timothy Shanahan, a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has spent his career evaluating education research and helping teachers figure out what works best in the classroom. A leader of the National Reading Panel, whose 2000 report helped shape what’s now known as the “science of reading,” Shanahan has long influenced literacy instruction in the United States. He also served on the National Institute for Literacy’s advisory board in both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations.

    Shanahan is a scholar whom I regularly consult when I come across a reading study, and so I was eager to interview him about his new book, “Leveled Reading, Leveled Lives.” (Harvard Education Press, September 2025). In it, Shanahan takes aim at one of the most common teaching practices in American classrooms: matching students with “just-right” books. 

    He argues that the approach — where students read different texts depending on their assessed reading level — is holding many children back. Teachers spend too much time testing students and assigning leveled books, he says, instead of helping all students learn how to understand challenging texts.

    “American children are being prevented from doing better in reading by a longstanding commitment to a pedagogical theory that insists students are best taught with books they can already read,” Shanahan writes in his book. “Reading is so often taught in small groups — not so teachers can guide efforts to negotiate difficult books, but to ensure the books are easy enough that not much guidance is needed.”

    Comprehension, he says, doesn’t grow that way.

    The trouble with leveled reading

    Grouping students by ability and assigning easier or harder books — a practice known as leveled reading — remains deeply embedded in U.S. schools. A 2018 Thomas B. Fordham Institute survey found that 62 percent of upper elementary teachers and more than half of middle school teachers teach at students’ reading level rather than at grade level.  

    That may sound sensible, but Shanahan says it’s not helping anyone and is even leading teachers to dispense with reading altogether. “In social studies and science, and these days, even in English classes,” he said in an interview, “teachers either don’t assign any readings or they read the texts to the students.” Struggling readers aren’t being given the chance — or the tools — to tackle complex material on their own.

    Instead, Shanahan believes all students should read grade-level texts together, with teachers providing more support for those who need it.

    Related: Our free weekly newsletter alerts you to what research says about schools and classrooms.

    “What I’m recommending is instructional differentiation,” he said in our interview. “Everyone will have the same instructional goal — we’re all going to learn to read the fourth-grade text. I might teach a whole-class lesson and then let some kids move on to independent work while others get more help. Maybe the ones who didn’t get it, read the text again with my support. By the end, more students will have reached the learning goal — and tomorrow the whole class can take on another text.”

    27 different ways

    Shanahan’s approach doesn’t mean throwing kids into the deep end without help. His book outlines a toolbox of strategies for tackling difficult texts, such as looking up unfamiliar vocabulary, rereading confusing passages, or breaking down long sentences. “You can tip over into successful reading 27 different ways,” he said, and he hopes future researchers discover many more. 

    He is skeptical of drilling students on skills like identifying the main idea or making inferences. “We’ve treated test questions as the skill,” he said. “That doesn’t work.”

    There is widespread frustration over the deterioration of American reading achievement, especially among middle schoolers. (Thirty-nine percent of eighth graders cannot reach the lowest of three achievement levels, called “basic,” on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.) But there is little agreement among reading advocates on how to fix the problem. Some argue that what children primarily need is more knowledge to grasp unfamiliar ideas in a new reading passage, but Shanahan argues that background knowledge won’t be sufficient or as powerful as explicit comprehension instruction. Other reading experts agree. Nonie Lesaux, dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education who specializes in literacy in her own academic work, endorsed Shanahan’s argument in an October 2025 online discussion of the new book. 

    Shanahan is most persuasive in pointing out that there isn’t strong experimental evidence to show that reading achievement goes up more when students read a text at their individual level. By contrast, a 2024 analysis found that the most effective schools are those that keep instruction at grade level. Still, Shanahan acknowledges that more research is needed to pinpoint which comprehension strategies work best for which students and in which circumstances.

    Misunderstanding Vygotsky

    Teachers often cite the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky’s “zone of proximal development” to justify giving students books that are neither too easy nor too hard. But Shanahan says that’s a misunderstanding of Vygotsky’s work.

    Vygotsky believed teachers should guide students to learn challenging things they cannot yet do on their own, he said.

    He offers an analogy: a mother teaching her child to tie their shoes. At first, she demonstrates while narrating the steps aloud. Then the child does one step, and she finishes the rest. Over time, the mother gradually releases control and the child ties a bow on his own. “Leveled reading,” Shanahan said, “is like saying, ‘Why don’t we just get Velcro?’ This is about real teaching. ‘Boys and girls, you don’t know how to ride this bike yet, but I’m going to make sure you do by the time we’re done.’ ”

    Related: What happens to reading comprehension when students focus on the main idea

    Shanahan’s critique of reading instruction applies mainly from second grade onward, after children learn how to read and are focusing on understanding what they read. In kindergarten and first grade, when children are still learning phonics and how to decode the words on the page, the research evidence against small group instruction with different level texts isn’t as strong, he said. 

    Learning to read first – decoding – is important. Shanahan says there are rare exceptions to teaching all children at grade level. 

    “If a fifth grader still can’t read,” Shanahan said, “I wouldn’t make that child read a fifth-grade text.” That child might need separate instruction from a reading specialist.

    Advanced readers, meanwhile, can be challenged in other ways, Shanahan suggests, through independent reading time, skipping ahead to higher-grade reading classes, or by exploring complex ideas within grade-level texts.

    The role of AI — and parents

    Artificial intelligence is increasingly being used to rewrite texts for different difficulty levels. Shanahan is skeptical of that approach. Simpler texts, whether written by humans or generated by AI, don’t teach students to improve their reading ability, he argues.

    Still, he’s intrigued by the idea of using AI to help students “climb the stairs” by instantly modifying a single text to a range of reading levels, say, to third-, fifth- and seventh-grade levels, and having students read them in quick succession. Whether that boosts comprehension is still unknown and needs to be studied.

    AI might be most helpful to teachers, Shanahan suspects, to help point to a sentence or a passage that tends to confuse students or trip them up. The teacher can then address those common difficulties in class. 

    Shanahan worries about what happens outside of school: Kids aren’t reading much at all.

    He urges parents to let children read whatever they enjoy — regardless if it’s above or below their level — but to set consistent expectations. “Nagging may not be effective,” he said. “But you can be specific: ‘After dinner Thursday, read the first chapter. When you’re done, we’ll talk about it, and then you can play a computer game or go on your phone.’ ”

    Too often, he says, parents back down when kids resist. “They are the kids. We are the adults,” Shanahan said. “We’re responsible. Let’s step up and do what’s right for them.”

    Contact staff writer Jill Barshay at 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 on Signal, or [email protected].

    This story about reading levels was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Proof Points and other Hechinger newsletters.

    This <a target=”_blank” href=”https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-shanahan-leveled-reading/”>article</a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https://hechingerreport.org”>The Hechinger Report</a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.<img src=”https://i0.wp.com/hechingerreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/cropped-favicon.jpg?fit=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”>

    <img id=”republication-tracker-tool-source” src=”https://hechingerreport.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=113055&amp;ga4=G-03KPHXDF3H” style=”width:1px;height:1px;”><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-shanahan-leveled-reading/”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } </script> <script id=”parsely-cfg” src=”//cdn.parsely.com/keys/hechingerreport.org/p.js”></script>

    Source link