The Importance of Our Kids' Literacy Development

With all daily digital noise vying for our kids' attention, it's important to remember how vital a role, literacy development plays in our children's overall learning and development. Recent research by the National Early Literacy Panel’s (NELP) finds that encouraging young children’s language and literacy development is important in language development and it's critical that our children become proficient readers by the end of third grade.

Educators like to say third grade is when kids move from learning to read, to reading to learn. According to literary specialist, Kathy Callister, "Things change in third grade. Kids are not just learning fundamentals of reading. They are reading for meaning and to learn. If kids are struggling to decode the words, they don't get much meaning from the text and don't learn what they need to know."

You may have read some of the posts by K¹² Director of Primary Literacy, Kristen Kinney-Haines, who recently shared some information about the distinct relationship between reading ability and completing high school. We also know that children who read on grade level by the end of third grade are more successful in school, work, and in life.

Based on the abundance of evidence, it's clear that literacy development plays a vital role in helping shape who our kids' become.

K^12's primary literacy curriculum focuses on the basics of phonics and grammar and preparation for reading through systematic, multi-sensory activities. Watch this video to gain some insight into what goes into creating our language arts curriculum and get more information about the language arts curriculum for kindergarteners known as K¹² Language Arts Blue.

In addition to our curriculum, we also offer many local and national activities and events to encourage students to read. 

Yesterday, we invited a small group of students from our partner school, CAPCS Online, to attend a special storytime we put together, with the help of the great people at DC United, the MLS Soccer club based close-by, in the nation's capital. Athletes Dwayne De Rosario and Perry Kitchen were kind enough to spend some time reading stories to encourage kids everywhere to read.  We recorded the athletes as they read their stories to the local students and plan to share the storytime videos with the larger school community as soon as they are ready. I also took lots of pictures that you can see in our K¹² facebook gallery.

Related Links

• How to Raise a Reader 
• NPR: Schools Get Tough With Third-Graders: Read Or Flunk 
• Why reading by third grade is critical, and what can be done to help children meet that deadline
• thinktanK12: Literacy