Teaching kids to read is cognitive science -- but not rocket science

"I teach fewer novels because the kids simply cannot handle it," a teacher in upstate New York told Melissa Manno. They can't pay attention.

Yet, teaching reading isn't rocket science, writes Charlie Friedman, leader of Nashville Classical Charters, on The 74. He explains how Nashville Classical East, a Title I, mostly minority K-8 school, revamped reading instruction to rank in the top 3 percent of schools in the state for third-grade reading proficiency. Four years ago, third-grade reading proficiency on the state test was a disappointing 40 percent. This summer, it hit 81 percent.

Any school can do it, writes Friedman.

Coaching and teacher training ensures that every teacher understands how students learn, including "the importance of securing and harnessing attention, the difference between working and long-term memory, the importance of background knowledge and the need to support encoding and retrieval."

It's cognitive science -- but it's not rocket science, he writes.

The new curriculum shifts the focus from skills to knowledge. "By eliminating time spent trying to teach abstract “critical thinking,” we have more time to build knowledge and vocabulary, which are the actual building blocks of comprehension," Friedman writes.

"Our benchmark assessment system measures fluency across grade levels, including for letter sounds, word reading, oral reading and silent reading," he writes. Teachers can "identify students at risk early and clearly, intervening to provide the right support to the right students."

"Writing is thinking," Friedman writes. Starting in kindergarten, students write about the knowledge they're learning -- not "my favorite pet."  For example, "our kindergarteners learn to speak in complete sentences while explaining what happens in nursery rhymes, our first graders learn to write sentences about Aesop’s Fables, and our second graders learn to write their first paragraphs about Greek myths."

"By third grade, students have learned to expand, distill and express their ideas in complex and complete sentences," he writes. They learn to rewrite their work.  

Unlike schools that have reduced the number of books children read in favor of excerpts, Nashville Classical use book-centric curricula developed by Core Knowledge, Fishtank and Reading Reconsidered, Friedman writes. "Great books expose children to beautiful stories that have or will stand the test of time." When a classroom of second graders readsCharlotte’s Web, "they are joining a cultural conversation that stretches across grades and generations."

Friedman warns school leaders to avoid "distracting, shiny objects," 'such as "digital tutors, complex intervention programs, AI-everything, etc." Focus.