“I wonder about the pacing of the story. It grabs the reader’s attention, but does it also squander it?”

“The title on the cover alone had my boys, some of the most reluctant readers, pick up the book and give it a try. That’s not nothing!”

“The story rushed to the end. All this development and suspense just to end with such a clean and coincidental conclusion was disappointing.”

“I would put this book in my classroom right now. As a matter of fact, I would make this a part of my curriculum!

On the last Thursday of each month, a panel of classroom educators, reading specialists, media center coordinators, and school counselors gather to have impassioned conversations about novels and memoirs. The judges’ panel is a two-year role that comes with the privilege of reading new and soon-to-come stories from publishers large and small. The quotes above reflect some of the comments and insights that can be heard in the online meeting room for the Walter Dean Myers Awards.

Walter Dean Myers Awards for Outstanding Children’s Literature, also known as “The Walter,” is the creation of We Need Diverse Books (WNDB), a nonprofit founded to promote diversity within children’s literature and publishing. The Walters are named after Walter Dean Myers, the groundbreaking writer whose YA (Young Adult) work focused on marginalized identities and whose characters are praised for their cultural accuracy and authenticity. Each year, the organization awards writers and creators who champion marginalized voices, identities, and experiences through moving stories. Publishers around the globe submit books of all genres that fit within the initial parameters for award consideration:

• Books authored and illustrated by creators of marginalized identities
• Books containing protagonists with marginalized identities

The organization awards storytellers and stories that authentically depict diverse and marginalized identities that include, and go beyond, race and gender, a commonly considered binary associated with diversity and representation. Neurodivergence, gender-queerness and expression, economic hardship, religious and cultural duties, rites of passage, disability, and activism, are a few of the topics and experiences the stories submitted discuss. The submissions reflect the organization’s expansive and inclusive understanding of diversity and representation.

The Walter Dean Myers Awards seek to highlight outstanding works of inclusive and diverse literature, as they uplift diverse voices, and because of this they are an integral tool for literacy education.

Through psychologist Keith Stanovich’s study of the Matthew Effect in literature, we learn about the importance of continued exposure to texts for the larger goals of vocabulary acquisition, prosody, and overall fluency. Such continued exposure cannot be maintained, however, without student engagement and buy in–two components the Walter Dean Myers Awards directly address. Myers, whose titles include Scorpions and Monster, is credited with reaching reluctant readers frustrated with books that fail to reflect their experiences, interests, or expertise. With those readers in mind, Myers sought to change a literary landscape that had overwhelmingly more white male storytellers and white male characters, encouraging both readers and publishers to consider the myriad voices and stories from different walks of life.

Over a decade after his passing, the Cooperative Children’s Book Center’s most recent statistics on diversity in literature show, for the first time, that 51% of the titles published and submitted in 2024 contained significant BIPOC content (meaning they have a primary or significant secondary character or human subject who is BIPOC, or the setting or topic of the book relates to BIPOC people, history, or culture). The larger number reflects a job well done for increased exposure and promotion of diverse stories, while the more detailed statistics, such as the percentage of Indigenous representation (3%) or disability (7%), reveal the work that remains to be done.

The Walter Dean Myers Award for Outstanding Children’s Literature shines a light on authors and stories bringing diverse perspectives and identities to the forefront of the field of children’s literature. Tantamount to a chain reaction, the award can mean the book has a greater presence in libraries, media centers, and bookstores across the country, leading to more books in the hands of children who often see books as another opportunity to feel excluded. Through inclusion, endeavors like those led by We Need Diverse Books serve as an invaluable component in the process of moving reluctant students to book lovers and confident fluent readers.

By: Jabari Sellars, Associate Director Curriculum Development, and panelist on The Walter Dean Myers Awards

In November, my colleague Chadae and I attended the 104th NCSS Annual Conference in Boston. We first attended a session delivered by Social Studies Accelerator that introduced us to the High Quality Instructional Materials 2.0 rubric for social studies. In our push for creating civic minded social studies materials, Chadae and I engaged in learning that used the rubric to evaluate different examples of instructional materials, including one of our own.

The criteria of the High Quality Instructional Materials (HQIM) rubric includes:

• standards alignment
• social studies practices
• representation and perspective
• usability
• instructional supports
• assessment practices

We reflected on the practice and found that the rubric could be adapted into our quality assurance process to improve our materials. The rubric revealed areas of improvement in the way we integrate social studies practices like having student experiences reflected and the use of inquiry. LDC has adapted the HQIM Rubric criteria and subitems into an evaluation Google Sheet, which has allowed us to improve upon our curricular modules, particularly in social studies practices and usability. The instructional supports criteria has also allowed us to have a more comprehensive review of updates made in our modules that provides teachers with strategies and practices to better support multilingual learners (MLL) and all students.

It had us really think about our suggested pacing for students to make sure they aren’t overwhelmed in the allotted time. There were some mini-tasks where we realized that having students read the existing text set, or analysis, and complete the writing protocols required more than 45 minutes to complete. We recognized strength in our materials when it came to disciplinary thinking, the diversity of perspectives and voices of texts, and the organization of our materials for both students and educators.

Using the HQIM rubric also highlighted work we have done with our content partners. After reflecting on our existing materials and receiving a second AHC grant to build on our work, we had the opportunity to explore content partnerships with experts in the MLL and CRSE fields. We reached out to WestEd and CommonGood Ed to support development of curricular and professional learning materials as part of our work under our AHC grant.

WestEd provided insight into how we could add scaffolds and supports to our student-facing materials, particularly focusing on strategies for multilingual learners, but really the strategies work well for all students. The module upgrades using WestEd’s expertise strengthened our materials when it came to the instructional strategies criteria. Similarly, CommonGood supported the strengthening of our instructional materials when it came to integrating culturally responsive practices and strategies. The development of framing questions and taking informed action gives teachers support in adapting our materials to reflect their own classrooms and school communities, addressing important criteria in social studies practices and representation and perspective from the HQIM rubric.

Since we built the HQIM criteria into our existing quality assurance process, we noticed consistency in making sure our learning materials were set up for student success. Our collaborative quality assurance process involves three reviews of a curricular module and a team touch point to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the module using the HQIM criteria. These touch points allow us to align on necessary revisions for the strongest version of our instructional materials to be more effective and supportive of students and their learning.

As we continue this work with the HQIM rubric and its criteria, we at LDC aim to continue the improvement of our existing and future curricular modules in social studies. There is so much excitement on our team about how we can keep improving upon our instructional materials to give students rigorous learning experiences that are grounded in civic mindedness and critical thinking.

By: Maya Welch, Associate Director, Program Development

Deming is credited with stating that, “every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.” These pervasive low literacy levels stem from serious flaws in the K12 schooling system — a system that excels at producing dependent learners accustomed to being spoon-fed facts and figures that they retain just long enough to answer multiple choice questions on a test. For decades, in spite of education reform measures, the current system of schooling has developed students who are over-reliant on teachers and underexposed to the quality of thinking necessary to flourish in an ever-evolving modern world.

Through funding from a federal Education in Research (EIR) grant, the Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC) has formulated a catalytic process to disrupt that system design at a most critical level: that of the instructional leadership team (ILT). LDC’s process leverages ILTs as the systemic unit of change. By focusing leaders’ attention on what students are being asked to do (the tasks) and examining the resulting student work, ILTs learn to make targeted, data-informed instructional decisions to support teacher teams (PLCs) to increase student outcomes across the school. This disruption creates multiple pathways to support students in becoming independent learners, to read and write at grade level and beyond, and to increase their strategic thinking abilities such that they are adequately prepared to become citizens of the 21st Century upon high school graduation.

LDC’s three-year Instructional Leadership Team Development Program has statistically demonstrated large positive effects sizes in student achievement state scores controlling for all student demographics. LDC, as an instructional system (integrating curriculum, professional learning, assessment), develops leadership capacity school-wide, shifting the focus from curriculum implementation to evidence of standards-aligned student work. A benefit for every student in every classroom, this program ensures high-quality instruction that improves student literacy outcomes.

Instructional Leadership Teams as Linchpins

Status quo solutions to low literacy levels, particularly the push toward high-quality instructional materials (HQIM) and curriculum-based professional learning (CBPL), have focused on fidelity to externally validated curriculum through whole-school curriculum adoption or successful unit rollouts. Though these decisions are foundational to progress, research confirms that EdReports green-rated curricula paired with shoulder-to-shoulder coaching for implementation is insufficient to transform literacy outcomes at scale. What really matters is the synergistic relationship between curriculum, teacher practice, and student thinking, per Richard Elmore’s Instructional Core. True literacy improvement happens when schools have the systems and structures in place to continuously improve student thinking skills by analyzing student work, adjusting and improving teacher instructional skill, and supporting rigorous, grade-level learning for all students.

LDC’s solution for systemic transformation requires educators to center student learning as the single source of truth. High Quality Tier 1 literacy is evidenced by student work that visibly demonstrates grade level thinking. When ILTs practice this student-centered approach to leadership development, they learn to think about literacy systemically, across contents and grade levels. HQIM is important, but it is just a tool and one subpart of a school’s instructional system. The actual goal is to ensure teachers are sufficiently skilled to engage all students in rich, rigorous, grade-level thinking consistently and across disciplines. It can only be measured where students make their thinking visible — in their work products. This is an instructional system that gets at deeper learning: Tier 1 literacy instruction aligned to the Science of Reading research beyond the foundational level of decoding and word work.

LDC’s field work and research base has shown that schools can accelerate their Tier 1 literacy growth by developing Instructional Leadership Teams (ILTs) that focus explicitly on the systems and structures necessary for instructional improvement.

As oft underutilized but high-leverage catalysts for improving school-wide instructional coherence and student outcomes, high-performing ILTs interweave complementary initiatives, creating system-wide processes that support instructional planning and real-time classroom decision-making aligned to literacy goals. They anchor professional learning, build teacher capacity, and enable teachers to assess — week by week — whether students are demonstrating the kind of increasingly strategic thinking and writing that signals grade-level mastery

In LDC’s model, ILTs are a linchpin for literacy improvement. When leaders shift their focus from siloed initiatives (HQIM implementation) to systems (scaled literacy leadership and teacher PLC development) they can create the conditions necessary for sustained progress — especially for those students who frequently get left behind. LDC’s model is composed of three-prongs:

1. A hierarchy of professional learning that flows from ILTs to teacher PLCs to classroom practice.
2. A mindset shift among educators toward a vision of Tier 1 disciplinary literacy, where all teachers are literacy teachers.
3. A culture of collegial inquiry via cohort-based learning, wherein four school-based ILTs engage in low stakes/high impact learning together, both virtually and in person.

LDC’s Approach to Building High-Performing Instructional Leadership Teams

LDC defines a high-performing ILT as one with a strong team culture paired with a student-centered instructional philosophy. In this vein, LDC has been facilitating literacy-focused improvement cycles with cohorts of ILTs (four school-based teams per cohort, roughly 16 participants per cohort) in New York City, Los Angeles, rural Kentucky, and rural Colorado over the past few years.

This is a three year pathway to sustainability. Year 1, a cohort-based learning program (40 hours total between August to June), is composed of a two day in-person launch, four half-day in-person Rigor Walks and nine 60 minute Zoom sessions that serve as the connective tissue between Rigor Walks. Additionally, LDC and principals have weekly 15–30 min huddle check-ins to monitor evidence of progress. Then, In Year Two, those replicable cycles become internalized and self-facilitated by school leaders, with support. By Year Three, the cycles are self-sustaining instructional systems that improve Tier 1 literacy for all students.

Evidence of the Power of High-Performing ILTs

Through a federal EIR grant, LDC is currently implementing and studying this approach in 73 schools serving over 49,500 middle grades students in New York City, Los Angeles, and Kentucky. These schools, serving an average 97% historically marginalized students and 92% economically disadvantaged students, with 34% students on average at proficiency in ELA in 2022–23, have partnered with LDC to explore how to create the on-the-ground conditions required to support ILTs as a primary and essential driver of instructional change and HQIM effective instruction — not just compliant adoption.

Literacy leaders responsible for instruction across Grades 6, 7, and 8 receive LDC support and coaching, then apply learnings within teacher PLCs that include all teachers of English, social studies, and science in those grades.

Data collected during the first year of the 3-year model show participants confirm that the LDC professional learning and associated processes were transformative to their thinking and enacted leadership actions, translating to significant positive state assessment effects sizes and improvement in literacy outcomes for all students.

Quality and Value of Professional Learning

Overwhelmingly, participants described LDC professional learning experiences as high quality, relevant, and adaptable. All ILT members noted their LDC experiences have been a good use of their time, have supported their ability to successfully address their school’s Problem of Practice, and that the ideas and strategies they have learned from LDC can be applied flexibly to multiple teachers and contexts in their school and have clear applications for helping teachers meet the needs of all students.

Participants also credited LDC with having a positive impact on their own leadership skill. Nearly all confirmed that the program helped build their capacity as an instructional leader (97%). And all ILT members reported the experience developed their ability to think and lead more systematically (i.e., beyond individual classroom(s)). One leader noted, “The rigor walk provided a concrete way to observe literacy rigor in action, allowing me to understand the key components of high-quality instruction and how to support it in the classroom. Scoring student work, on the other hand, gave me valuable insights into assessing literacy rigor through real examples, helping me refine my understanding of expectations and outcomes. Both experiences deepened my capacity to lead with a clear focus on improving literacy rigor in my school.”

When compared to other professional learning they have received, the majority of ILT members found the LDC learning experiences vastly better, characterizing them as more purposeful, action oriented, and readily applicable, and praised them for deeply and authentically uncovering what it looks like to teach to standards and see tangible evidence of standards in tasks and student work. ILT members reported significant learning related to the specific skills and actions needed to drive improvement in literacy outcomes. Three-quarters or more indicated they greatly increased their knowledge and skill in the following areas: using standards to drive grade-level literacy rigor; understanding how task predicts performance (i.e., the quality of an assignment predicts the quality of a student’s work); leveraging student work as data to drive school-wide literacy action plans; and supporting teachers in grade-level instruction while also responding to the needs identified through learning from student work.

Changes to Mindsets and Processes

Shifting focus from curriculum implementation to student demonstrations of learning is not easy. It creates a tension that calls the question: What is student-centered instruction? By internalizing and utilizing LDCs Instructional Mindset Shifts (orange box below) and engaging in LDC’s ILT Process for Systemic Change (green box below), participants were able to shift their thinking in the moment from what teachers are doing to what students are producing. For example, one ILT member noted LDC’s professional learning helped her comprehend the importance of “reaching all students, even those below grade level, and giving everyone access to rigorous grade level tasks.”

To that end, not only did ILT members across pilot schools report positive perceptions of and growth resulting from the LDC professional learning, but more importantly they reported making tangible shifts in their school’s systems and processes in alignment with the LDC model. Examples are: engaging in collaborative vision-setting as an ILT, identifying a literacy-based Problem of Practice, establishing and maintaining professional learning communities (PLCs) for grade teams and/or content teams, creating and protecting weekly meeting time in the school day for PLCs, creating an intervisitation plan for the ILT and PLCs to see performance tasks in action, and consistently scoring student work using a standards-based rubric.

In so doing, these educators experienced the mindset shifts critical to harnessing the power of school ILTs and PLCs, and they began to realize the potential of these processes to drive systemic change across initiatives and regardless of the specific curriculum materials in place.

In short, the partnership with LDC helped them not only implement their curriculum with fidelity, but also use regular, standards-based examples of student learning — in particular student writing — as evidence of what students know, how they are thinking, and whether they are engaging deeply in grade level work as a result of HQIM implementation.

Notably, ILT members saw the LDC model as a unifying force that helped leaders to braid disparate initiatives under the umbrella of high-quality Tier 1 literacy improvements, rather than as a new, separate initiative to contend with.

Improved Student Learning and Rigor

Across the board, our measures of student learning reveal that the LDC model drives results, demonstrating that when leaders with increased knowledge and skill enact the systems and processes to effectively guide and support teachers in high-quality standards-based instruction, student learning soars. Leaders saw compelling evidence of student learning with the LDC instructional modules — backward-designed 7–10 day lesson sequences that culminate in students producing formal, discipline-specific writing products — with nine out of 10 members reporting LDC had a positive effect on students’ ability to complete writing assignments, the quality of students’ writing, and their overall literacy performance. Independent research conducted by CRESST-UCLA to be released shortly again confirms that LDC’s current program has had statistically large positive effects sizes in improving student state assessment scores controlling for all demographic variables.

In 10 of LDCs New York City pilot schools, iReady results over the course of the 2024–25 school year show a consistent picture of significant improvement in reading scores: all schools saw an increase, on average, in the number of students scoring at or above grade level by end of year, with 8 of 10 schools seeing a double digit increase. And, all 10 schools saw a decrease in the number of students in the lowest level (three or more years below grade level) with half seeing double digit losses.

Conclusion

Investing in ILT development is about creating the sustainable leadership infrastructure necessary to accelerate literacy progress at scale. Strengthening Tier 1 Literacy by shifting the focus from HQIM adoption (compliance) to the quality of HQIM instruction and objective demonstrations of the thinking students regularly engage in (efficacy). By adopting a hierarchical, scalable approach to leveraging adult learning systems starting with leadership, the instructional systems pathway forward to success is clear. Curricular cohesion is foundational but insufficient.

A focus on systems-building and sustainability is necessary to advance deeper learning for all students and ultimately increase student literacy outcomes.

By: Kami Lewis Levin, Chief Learning Officer

The work of the Literacy Design Collaborative has always been rooted in rigor. What began as a group of educators coming together to eliminate achievement gaps through high quality writing assignments, has blossomed into a wonderfully crafted set of standards, guidelines, and templates that seamlessly blend standards and skills with high interest topics and student voice.

Recently, we had the opportunity to listen to educators who participated in our Taking Informed Action (TIA) cohort as they spoke about the ways they engaged their students in meaningful representations of their learning that connected to their community at large. Some educators kept it cozy and in the classroom with discussions and dioramas, some educators engaged in out of classroom experiences, others conducted their own version of TED Talks and invited families and community members to listen in on student advocacy. All together, these educators showed the heart, commitment and intellect that are integral to being an effective educator.

As a nationwide organization, our work strives to provide materials for educators and students that meet the rigor of national standards. We produce materials with high quality, grade level text. Our ‘learn’¹ experiences for educators, challenge them to think critically about their pedagogical practices and the needs of all students, while identifying ways they can differentiate and serve individual populations. We also understand the importance of localized learning and engaging students in experiences that bring their knowledge and skills to life beyond the four walls of the classroom. Which is why we designed the T.I.A cohort in the first place.

The Foundation: The Why Behind Academically Enriching Civic Engagement

Two years ago, we received our second grant from the USDOE- the American History, Civics and Government grant, which provided us with the opportunity to build upon our work in the first AHC grant and help provide educators with enhanced tools to implement high quality social studies learning experiences for their students. Based on teacher feedback, we prioritized additions that would support educators in building even stronger bridges between their students and the content. This led us to partner with fantastic organizations, such as Common Good Ed, who helped us craft materials and create guidelines to more meaningfully and effectively build these content and student connections. With the expertise of Evan Gutierrez and Carly Muetterties, we were able to strengthen our modules and bring civically engaging enhancements to our materials. When we arrived at the ‘taking informed action’² component of our new learning, we were intrigued. We saw the opportunity to go beyond the creation of materials, and engage with our fellows to not only build, but also execute what they created.

The foundational idea was simple; teach educators how to implement a module, give them background on taking informed action, and see what they come up with. The first year, this resulted in some really fantastic brainstorming and data gathering on what educators considered “taking informed action.” We began to uncover a disconnect between the research and the ideas which our fellows operated under. Many of our fellows understood taking informed action to be civic engagement and out of school opportunities. They shared really wonderful field trip experiences and connections that they made to their community. Of course, it was wonderful to hear all the ways our fellows made their students’ classroom experiences exciting by planning field trips to local museums, visiting libraries or planning food drives- but we knew, by all definitions of the term, these examples were not considered taking informed action.

Planning for Year Two: Guiding Educators to Understand Informed Action

Through conversations with educators and reflections among the team, we realized that the key component missing was the ‘informed’ piece. While these experiences were interesting and certainly helped to build student knowledge, they were rarely informed by a learning opportunity and subsequently, they rarely contained a specific point where the students themselves took action. While knowledge building can be a goal of TIA, the thread and intention behind the knowledge needs to be clearly articulated to students so that it can be achieved by students.

After the first cohort completed, we took everything we learned and honed in on designing a pathway to that thread for our fellows. We revamped our meetings, designed workshop time, created strong materials and met regularly to ensure we were meeting our goals. We launched the cohort again for the 2024–2025 school year, inviting veteran and new fellows into one cohort all together, so that they could build in community and we could elicit meaningful feedback from those who experienced the fellowship at the two stages.

Year 2: Successful Execution

As we wrapped up cohort experience #2 with a virtual exhibition, we were deeply inspired by the results. We found that the educators were now able to accurately articulate the connection between their students’ learning and the taking informed action experience, displaying depth beyond field trips or disconnected (albeit, kind and thoughtful) class volunteer projects. We saw their creativity in teaching bloom and their students’ creativity of expression flourish. We felt, even as a national organization, we could impact local learning and student experiences, by supporting teachers in high quality, rigorous standards based teaching that elicits student voice.

Oftentimes, educators are made to feel as if they have to choose between the two. Many teaching practices and resources highlight either rigorous standards based teaching or student voice and rarely are able to bridge the concepts in meaningful ways. There is an unnecessary and stifling binary between rigor and fun, educational and entertaining, test scores or creativity. Our goal as educators ourselves is to support classroom teachers in breaking that binary and understanding the ways in which a high quality education can achieve it all, while supporting students as they grow into civically conscious citizens.

Through work with the Literacy Design Collaborative and engaging their students in taking informed action, our fellows were able to achieve just that.

By: Sabrina Alicea, Senior Director, Curriculum Development

MISCONCEPTION #1: Instructional Leadership Teams and School Leadership Teams are interchangeable. THIS IS FALSE. They are not the same thing, though there may be overlapping participants. An ILT is entirely focused on instruction and should include the principal, the instructional assistant principal, the instructional coach, and any grade team or content team teacher leaders. An SLT is focused on whole school goings-on and, in addition to most of the folks listed above, might include social workers, school psychologists, deans, family liaisons, parents, students, operations managers, and reps from community-based organizations.

POTENTIAL FIX: If you are implementing ILTs and/or SLTs, formalize the teams and the meeting structures.
💡 Be clear about the why or purpose of each team.
💡 Be clear about who is on each team (and let them know which they are on!)
💡 Be clear about when each team is meeting. Calendar it and hold it sacred.
💡 Always always always have an agenda that is driven by an intended outcomes aligned to the why or purpose of the team.

MISCONCEPTION #2: Teachers don’t have time to meet, collaborate or build collective efficacy. They are too overwhelmed already. And when they do meet, it’s a waste of time. THIS IS FALSE. (Though it may appear true.) If teachers don’t have time to meet, that indicates a flaw in the system not a flaw in the teachers. Leaders can use their locus of control to creatively ensure teachers have protected time to meet with their counterparts and use collaboration as a way to decrease overwhelm.

POTENTIAL FIX:
💡 Privilege time in the school schedule for teacher professional learning communities (PLCs) to come together DURING THE SCHOOL DAY. Some leaders carve this time out weekly and some daily, but move the puzzle pieces around until grades teams and/or content teams have regularly scheduled meeting times.
💡 Introduce 3 rotating protocols to ensure the meeting time is used effectively: 1) a co-planning protocol (lesson/unit unpacking, curriculum internalization, etc), 2) a looking at student work protocol, 3) a corrective action/targeting instruction protocol to address the finding from looking at student work.

Addressing these two misconceptions, sticking to your fixes, and communicating the new systems and structures clearly to staff can be a game changer for student outcomes. ILTs and PLCs are powerful engines for change when they are deployed thoughtfully and strategically, as I’ve seen in our schools this year!

For additional ideas, see our updated Conditions for Systemic Change checklist below.

By: Kami Lewis Levin, Chief Learning Officer

The concept LDC is introducing is culturally responsive literacy leadership — instructional leadership focused on radically improving literacy levels across a system of classrooms or schools. CRLL is built upon a robust foundation of research across three areas: culturally responsive teaching, disciplinary literacy, and deeper learning.

Each area supports the idea that school leaders can directly drive literacy-focused instructional practices and hence, student literacy outcomes. Our theory of action connects these critical ideas into a catalyst for change for underserved students, positing that CRLL helps teachers integrate Tier 1 disciplinary literacy practices into the culturally responsive teaching framework, resulting in deeper learning for students, as illustrated above.

Culturally Responsive Teaching

Higher order learning occurs in classrooms where students feel a sense of belonging and where teachers acknowledge and integrate students’ communities, cultures, and identities into the learning process (Hammond, 2012). Culturally responsive teaching, then, prompts educators to seek approaches to teaching and learning that are grounded in social emotional development that sees students’ unique cultural and community contexts as assets to be leveraged. Unfortunately, today’s students, especially those from historically disenfranchised communities, often receive instruction that both fails to follow the tenets of culturally responsive teaching and is well below grade level standards — a result of “inequity by design” (Hammond, 2013.) The gap between many students meeting the demands of their classroom assignments, yet not demonstrating mastery of grade level standards, exists because so few assignments actually gave students a chance to demonstrate grade-level mastery (TNTP, 2018). In fact, research shows that culturally responsive teaching addresses the lack of grade-level instruction by ensuring high expectations and teaching standards for those teaching minoritized students (Khalifa, 2024). Specifically, cognition and critical thinking are the norm in culturally responsive classrooms because students can more easily access and productively struggle with work that they see themselves in.

Implementing culturally responsive teaching has proven to be a challenge. In response, the Spencer Foundation produced a recent series of white papers highlighting the importance of culturally responsive teaching in education. Khalifa’s paper on culturally responsive school leadership (CRSL) is of particular interest from an implementation perspective, suggesting that culturally responsive teaching is not, in itself, enough (2024). It must be part of a larger systemic shift led by school leadership. The Five Strands of CRSL detailed by Khalifa, include: 1) Critical self reflection 2) Community engagement 3) School culture and climate 4) Instructional leadership, and 5) Community, systems change, and sustainability. Understanding the strands and implications of research in each area, CRSL asserts that equitable and culturally responsive school practice must be explicitly present, and that treating equity as an add-on is ineffective. LDC focuses most directly on Strand 4 — instructional leadership. When instructional leaders (and leadership teams) effectively help teachers integrate Tier 1 disciplinary literacy practices into a culturally responsive teaching framework, we see improved outcomes for students.

Disciplinary Literacy

Disciplinary literacy is the notion that across academic disciplines, there are literacy-based distinctions demanding that students utilize discipline-specific ways of reading, writing, listening, speaking, and thinking to most effectively engage in and learn concepts and principles specific to each discipline (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2014). For example, an effectively written science report detailing lab results is very different — in purpose, structure, information provided, language choice, among other factors — than an effectively written ELA essay analyzing a short story. Understanding these differences, and being able to apply them appropriately across disciplines as both author and consumer, requires different knowledge and skills. Thus, a disciplinary literacy approach to teaching would emphasize the special knowledge and abilities needed by those who practice, communicate, and utilize knowledge within a specific discipline (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2014).

However, literacy-based instructional practices often do not evolve to introduce more complex, disciplinary-specific reading and writing skills as students progress in school. Disciplinary literacy requires students to increase the complexity of their thinking. It challenges them with a new developmental stage of intellectual curiosity and skill building. Yet, far too many adolescent students do not receive educational opportunities that employ disciplinary literacy, contributing to the low level instructional rigor, particularly prevalent for students from historically marginalized populations cited above. Failure to integrate disciplinary literacy into instruction furthers this inequity by reinforcing low expectations for students. Research demonstrates that the quality of the tasks put in front of students predicts how they will perform on said tasks (Santelises & Dabrowski, 2015). Low-level tasks such as those absent disciplinary literacy practices yield low-level student work in response. Most educators are not adequately prepared to teach students disciplinary literacy to the extent necessary (Fang & Coatman, 2013). School-based literacy leadership can transform classroom teachers’ ability to engage in disciplinary literacy practices, and thus level up student learning across subjects and content areas.

Deeper Learning

The concept of “deeper learning” is a combination of (a) a deeper understanding of core academic content; (b) the ability to apply that understanding to novel problems and situations; and (c) the development of a range of competencies, including interpersonal skills and intrapersonal skills such as academic mindsets and self-management (Zeiser, 2020a). Deeper Learning is so powerful because it both promotes and cultivates 21st century non-negotiables such as collaboration, critical thinking and problem-solving, effective communication, and academic mindsets — skills that once were considered “soft” and are now perceived as essential for all students upon entry into the modern day workforce. Its true power, though, is that these skills double as critical literacy skills that all readers and writers rely on not just in their K-12 experience but in post-secondary, career pathways, and far beyond.

From a Tier 1 literacy perspective, deeper learning aligns directly to the language comprehension portion of Scarborough’s Reading Rope (see graphic below) by regularly engaging students in reading and writing that is “increasingly strategic” (Scarborough, 2001), presenting opportunities for students to mentally sweat by analyzing, synthesizing, and wrestling with texts that are just beyond their reading level.

Lamentably, operationalizing deeper learning has been fraught with challenge as it necessitates changes in school programs, curricula, assessment, teacher preparation, in addition to mindset shifts of the adults in schools and school districts.

Teachers can only provide deeper learning opportunities if school and district leaders understand the importance of deeper learning, and if they prioritize student curiosity and model critical thinking, collaboration, and creative approaches themselves (Cator, et. al., 2015). Because most educators have not experienced deeper learning themselves, school and district leaders must learn to build a culture in which teachers can take risks and learn (Mehta, 2024).

Relationship of the Research to Culturally Responsive Literacy Leadership

Independently, all three bodies of research outlined above are strong calls to action for education reform. What must change is clear. Culturally responsive teaching practices connect instructional practices and content to lived experiences (and culture) for deep understanding. Disciplinary literacy introduces the idea that literacy practices are discipline specific and that the rigor exists in the differences between them, privileging the ability to transfer useful skills across contexts while also underscoring the ability to pivot from one discipline to another. Deeper learning undergirds and enriches the other two by focusing on authentic learning, the application of conceptual understanding to real world problems, and the freedom to be curious and innovative as solution seekers. Together, this research, when translated to classroom- and school-based initiatives, can reimagine high quality Tier 1 literacy instruction across the country and particularly for students in the most underserved communities. But how? Braiding them together through a culturally responsive literacy leadership approach may provide a playbook for instructional leadership teams to put these separate initiatives into practice simultaneously in service of one single goal: to increase literacy outcomes school-wide or potentially district-wide.

By: Kami Lewis Levin, Kerri Kerr and Sabrina Alicea

References

Cator, K., Schneider, C.L., Vander Ark, T. (2015). Preparing Leaders for Deeper Learning. The Hewlett Foundation. https://hewlett.org/library/preparing-leaders-for-deeper-learning/

Fang, Z., & Coatoam, S. (2013). Disciplinary literacy: What you want to know about it. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 56(8), 627–632. https://doi.org.

Hammond, Z. (2012). Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain. Corwin Press.

Khalifa, M. (2024). Culturally Responsive School Leadership: Emerging Trends and Future Possibilities. Spencer Foundation.

Mehta, J. (2024), “Commentary: Leading for deeper learning: why a human vision of schooling demands a human vision of leadership”, Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 62 №1, pp. 173–177. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-01-2024-276

Santelises, S.B. & Dabrowski, J. (2015). Checking In: Do Classroom Assignments Reflect Today’s Higher Standards? Washington, DC: Education Trust.

Shanahan, T., & Shanahan, C. (2014). What is disciplinary literacy and why does it matter? Topics in Language Disorders, 34(1), 7–18.

TNTP. (2018). The Opportunity Myth: What Students Can Show Us About How School Is Letting Them Down — and How to Fix It. https://tntp.org/tntp_the-opportunity-myth_web/

Zeiser, K. L., Brodziak de los Reyes, I., & Yang, R. (2020a). Equitable opportunities for deeper learning: Exploring differences between traditional and network schools. https://www.air.org/sites/default/files/Deeper-Learning-Equity-Differences-Traditional-Network-Schools-508-June-2020.pdf

Mendez v. Westminster, a foundational case in the American battle for equal education, was once just a footnote in our history. Not just metaphorically, but literally. Mendez v. Westminster (1946) was cited in the Supreme Court case Brown V. Board (1954). Over the years, the case and its groundbreaking outcome have become more highlighted and common in the historical and educational zeitgeist. Many students today know about the case and can prattle off the timeline between the two historic moments, but that’s often where the understanding of the case stops.

As a Latina with Puerto Rican and Mexican heritage, I’ve long felt a deep connection to Sylvia Mendez and her family’s story. Her journey mirrored aspects of my own family’s experiences. My great-grandmother, a first-generation Mexican American born in Chicago, grew up navigating the realities of racism, discrimination, and assimilation. Stories like hers were rarely seen in my own school curriculum until I learned about Mendez v. Westminster.

Expanding the narrative around school segregation

Before learning about the Mendez family and their impact I, like many, associated school desegregation solely with Brown v. Board of Education. It’s absolutely undeniable that Brown v. Board is a monumental case that indisputably shaped the trajectory of public education for all students in extremely profound ways. Still, I noted that the conversation about school desegregation left many other ethnicities and nationalities out of the mix. As a narrow minded high schooler, I of course, was worried about myself. I knew Latinos had been in America for generations. In many cases across the south and California, the old adage is, they didn’t cross the border- the border crossed them. This left me wondering: Where were we? Where was my family in this history? I was genuinely perplexed at how this history could be so silent in so many textbooks?

The answers to these questions were never going to be easy to uncover, especially for a high school student completing a homework assignment in between classes, extra curriculars, and the abundance of teenage angst and self righteousness that surrounded my every waking moment . Now, I have maturity, presence of mind, and most importantly, years of teaching experience behind me, in addition to a masters degree that gave me a profoundly deeper understanding of learning in American society. This along with the slow, yet surely moving passage of time and societal growth, provides us with a more tangible way to describe such experiences. Today, most educators have the words to describe important concepts like ‘hidden histories’ and ‘counter storytelling,’ both of which technically describe my first encounter with Mendez v. Westminster. However, at the time of my learning, I was merely taught about the case’s outcome and key people involved, which was enough to fill in blanks recounting dates, times, and other people involved. Through the lens of angst rebellion and teen exhaustion, I was still craving more. Still, as a Director of Curriculum development, (an unknown) amount of years later, I knew that wasn’t enough.

Designing Curriculum to Fill the Gaps

In my current role, I oversee the development of learning materials designed to provide educators with tools to teacher high quality standards based writing in response to culturally responsive and engaging grade level texts. We call these materials, ‘modules’ as they are short, backwards designed learning experiences designed to fit into a teacher’s already existing curriculum. Our team approaches this work as former classroom teachers with a heart for creating the high quality materials we wished we had in the classroom. As a Puerto Rican educator in the Humboldt neighborhood of Chicago (a historically Puerto Rican neighborhood), I was hard pressed to find high quality materials that met the needs of my students. I, of course, taught my middle school students about Mendez v. Westminster and I tried to use my past experience to make the learning experience more informative, and better for them, as all loving educators do, but I knew I still missed the mark.

Full transparency, it wasn’t until I began designing this module that I had an “aha” moment. This is what students are missing — the context of time and place. It seems so straight forward when typing it out now but the truth was, that information wasn’t always readily available in the past! In the early days of this case getting its due attention, the texts were solely about the case and the people. Genuinely understanding the context of time and place allows students to see beyond the isolated events of the case and this particular outcome. To truly understand historical events, students need to genuinely understand the forces that drive them.

To get there, our team crafted this task prompt: “After reading texts about social and educational conditions for Mexican-Americans in early 20th-century California, write a historical analysis explaining the historical context of the time and describing the impact of de facto segregation on Mexican-American students’ education.” While many students understand the basics of segregation, the concept of de facto segregation — where laws may classify people one way, but social practices treat them differently — is often new and eye-opening. For example, though Mexicans were legally classified as white post-Mexican-American War, Mexican-American families still experienced segregation and discrimination, such as separate swim days in public pools before the pools were drained and refilled for white patrons.

In the early stages of module development, we volleyed between the task, the texts, and the foundational standards. For this module, we leaned on the C3 Framework standard, D2.His.1.9–12, which encourages students to evaluate how historical events and developments are shaped by the unique circumstances of time, place, and broader historical contexts. It’s a crucial thinking skill, yet one that can be challenging to teach effectively. Additionally, our work at LDC isn’t just about the one module and getting students to answer basic questions. Because they are designed as teaching tools, our resources must guide students to apply this skill consistently across different historical topics and prompts.

Building this bridge between the task prompt and the C3 standard required significant tinkering. I experimented with different questions, recognizing that while direct questions can check for knowledge, they don’t necessarily build a transferable skill. I consulted with colleagues and reviewed a related module on Henrietta Lacks. Both modules emphasized historical context, especially considering how practices typical of the time, like the non-consensual use of Lacks’s cells, shaped outcomes.

Ultimately, I developed a “historical context analysis” tool that prompts students to describe, interpret, and analyze specific aspects of historical events in one of our mini-tasks (45 min lesson plans). To understand the impact of the Mendez v. Westminster ruling, students must first understand the historical context. To do this, students are provided with excerpts from the text about the Mendez family’s case, de-facto segregation and education of Mexican and Mexican American students. Students are tasked to describe, elaborate, interpret, and analyze the information. By the end of this mini-task, students should be able to accurately convey their analysis around the historical context. Here’s how it works:

1. Description: Students start by providing a detailed account of the event, much like elaboration in writing. The prompt is a direct quote from the text but students have to fill in more of the who, what, where, when and why.
2. Interpretation: Students interpret the information in a way that invites them to think about the factors and societal norms that shaped the event. They respond to teacher prompts such as “How was this able to happen?” and “What circumstances led to this?”
3. Analysis: Finally, students reflect on broader impacts with questions such as “How might this have impacted students at the time?” and “How did this event influence education in the future?”

The first three prompts crafted for the Mendez v. Westminster module are shown in the graphic organizer below:

Alignment: Student, Teacher, Curriculum director

In the instructional strategies accompanying the module, educators are encouraged to guide students through these stages. Aligning the experiences of teenage Sabrina, Ms. Alicea the teacher, and Sabrina Alicea Ed.M Director of Curriculum development, the goal of this module and mini task specifically, is to understand beyond a court case’s outcome and see the bigger picture: that history is shaped by the confluence of time, place, and context. Our work as educators aims for students to engage in deeper learning and think beyond facts and dates. We want them to have the skills to read great texts, analyze what they read, and from a social studies perspective understand the ripple effects of events on civic life and society.

This is the magic and importance of disciplinary literacy. It’s not enough to know facts and data. With the age of google and chat gpt, facts (or information disguised as facts) are easy to come by. It’s the critical thinking, the big picture understanding, the reflective thinking and quite honestly, the empathy and connection to the past that can only be delivered by a high quality educator.

Although I am no longer in the classroom, I still pride myself on being a high quality educator, even if my delivery of materials looks a bit different. Recently, I’ve been diving back into my scholarly articles and research from grad school to make sure I stay rooted in research. I counseled with our Chief Learning Officer about my desire to study literacy again. “Reading isn’t going away,” she told me. And it’s true. We’ve entered a new age of the reading wars. Although the field of education is considered relatively “new” in the grand scheme of time, we have more insights and research than ever before. The education pendulum continues to swing and as educators, we can only do what we can with the information we have at hand.

This keeps us grounded here at LDC. As a R&D shop for disciplinary literacy, we commit ourselves to developing materials and programs that remain rooted in the science of reading, often thought of as a buzzword now, but a long known, scientifically backed process of what happens in the brain and builds better readers. We design tier 1 materials that ensure all students get access to high quality, grade level texts and thinking experiences. We consult Scarborough’s reading rope at every turn and ensure that our organization creates the best materials and experiences that align with the ‘language comprehension’ aspect of Scarborough’s research. It’s a lot of information and knowledge to hold while designing materials for students, but it’s necessary if we are going to make an impact for our students, especially those like myself from historically marginalized communities.

As I wrapped up this module, we passed Dia de Los muertos which provides the opportunity to celebrate and acknowledge our loved ones passed. I sat and thought about my great grandmother and the journey of her parents. Originating from Salvatierra, Guanajuato, her father worked his way up the fields from Mexico through the United States as a migrant worker before landing in Chicago. He sent for his wife and two daughters to join him. She raised two girls by herself, then came to Chicago to later have two more (one being my great grandma). Her family lived through the depression surviving on food scraps her father brought home from his job in the kitchen at the Palmer House. Their life wasn’t easy and although I was fortunate to learn about many aspects from her, I often desired to know more about what the world was like around her. I wish she was still here so I can tell her how much her stories have impacted me and who I am today. The magic of Dia de Los Muertos signifies a break in the barrier between the afterword and our world, where our ancestors can come to visit us (yes, Disney’s Coco got it right). If she did visit me, I know she would see the way I place her picture on a communal ofrenda every year, talk about her love of Jimmy’s hotdogs, and credit her for my dark humor and inability to hold back an opinion. I also know she’d see my work as an educator, which holds a massive part of my heart. I can only hope that I’m making her proud in this work. I’d tell her how honored I am to be an educator. I’d tell her I’m creating opportunities for students all across the United States to engage with materials that will make them better readers, writers and thinkers. I’d tell her that her stories mattered to me and I’m creating avenues for these students to understand the past and what generations of Mexicans and Mexican Americans have experienced, because knowledge is power, literacy is power and this is my way of honoring her spirit to create a better future.

You can access the module here, and it will be available for a limited time. I welcome feedback from educators who implement these materials in their classrooms. Together, let’s continue to enrich our students’ learning experiences and foster a deeper understanding of history.

By: Sabrina Alicea, Senior Director, Curriculum Development

“The story began in Boston”. As you walk through Boston Common you’re met with a memorial, and those are the words that you first see on the plaque describing “The Embrace.” The beautiful statue was designed to showcase Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And Corretta Scott King’s embrace, illustrating their love story which began in Boston since that’s where they met. The memorial reflects “the power of collective action, the role of women in the freedom movement, and the forging of solidarity out of mutual empathy and vulnerability.” While my story of connecting with social studies educators didn’t start in Boston, my growth and learning as an NCSS attendee did. And for me, it was a time when I felt a deep connection to Social Studies, as a former English teacher.

The photograph above was taken as my colleague Maya and I were walking through The Boston Common. As we were on our way to our hotel, Maya shared with me how beautiful and historical many places in Boston are. I often share with her how I am now realizing that although I was an ELA teacher, I didn’t realize how much I loved social studies and the parallels between the two — and my experience as a first timer at NCSS confirmed that.

It started with Evaluating and Advancing Culturally Responsive Social Studies Education, a session we attended hosted by Ebony from OER Project and Beth from the American Institutes for Research. It was a session that started with connection, as we identified who was in the room, worked on building a community, and discussed the importance and the need for culturally responsive social studies education. We talked at great length about our why’s for becoming educators, the work we do, and how important learning materials are to accomplishing educational goals. After discussions, we moved into an analysis and evaluation of High Quality Instructional Materials. What made this session so invigorating was the joy, passion, creativity, and intelligence in the room. It was also great to reconnect as we have partnered with them on particular projects, and some of our partnerships over at CommonGood were in the room as well.

Day 2 was even more invigorating, especially after attending the session “The Democratic Imperative for Civic Digital Literacy”. That session was packed with nuggets and takeaways to support our students with using digital media in an informed way. We were introduced to a study by Stanford researchers, that 3,446 high school students were tasked with identifying whether an online source was credible or not, and only 3 students were able to accurately do that. The study mentioned the results show “an urgent need to better prepare students for the realities of a world filled with a continual flow of misleading information.” We were then introduced to the skill of lateral reading and how students can use it to analyze the information they’re taking in online. Another engaging experience during the session was when Dr. Weinberg explained the difference between how intellectual people read resources and critical thinkers read resources. When discussing how to determine credibility when using online resources, he challenged us to change our thinking from “is this site credible” to “what I am reading.” When we ask ourselves what we are reading, we assess the resources to see if we understand where it came from. This is important especially when we realize that too many young people believe the myth that a .org website is credible, when in reality anyone can have a .org. Dr. Weinberg also shared with us that it’s important to tap into the information that our young people are consuming so we can support them with understanding it. He gave us a great example of mewing (and if you’re an educator, and unfamiliar with the term, I urge you to look it up.) and explained that young people believe that it can cause their jawlines to be chiseled. He also added that if young people were vetting information then they would know that the person who came up with that was disbarred. My biggest takeaway from that session, and one that I would like to continue honing in on and sharing with others is, it’s all about thinking critically about the information we see online and supporting students to do that critical thinking, because when used well the internet can be such a powerful tool.

Of course there were many sessions throughout the day, and I was overwhelmed with joy from being in a space with educators, scholars, and professionals with a shared commitment to educating and advancing education. I reflected a lot about the power of the collective, and how fruitful it can be when educators come together, share research, share strategies, and discuss their passion for teaching and learning. I also reflected on how empowering it was to hear social studies teachers discuss literacy, especially as a former English teacher. When I was teaching High School English, there were times when I would hear some folks say teaching literacy is the English teachers job, and teaching history is the social studies teacher’s job - but what we find when the two are merged are far more impactful, empowering, and rich both for our young people and for educators. And these insights continue to fuel the passion and joy I have for our work together.

While my first social studies conference started in Boston, it certainly won’t be my last.

By: Chadae McAnuff

The Literacy Design Collaborative is an R&D/product design lab focused on high-quality Tier 1 literacy instruction across disciplines. Designing with, not just for, stakeholders across the system, LDC works directly with teachers, administrators, professional learning communities (PLCs), students, parents, schools and districts. By engaging in repeated continuous improvement development cycles of educator tools, resources, and instructional processes, LDC helps guarantee rigorous, student-centered, culturally-responsive learning experiences for all students, centering those that are historically marginalized. LDC both accelerates student learning and redresses inequitable gaps in learning and is evidence-based.

This systems-thinking approach builds educator capacity to engage all students in deeper learning, leveraging science of reading research.

How LDC’s Values Drive Results

What is the Science of Reading?

The science of reading is not a term that can be cleanly and articulately defined. It is actually a wide, interdisciplinary body of research derived from a cross section of fields including cognitive psychology, communication science, developmental psychology, education, linguistics and neuroscience that explores and explains how students learn to read. It includes evidence supporting phonological and phonemic awareness, phonics and word recognition, fluency, vocabulary, content knowledge development, and comprehension.

Scarborough’s Reading Rope (2001) visually represents the ways in which word recognition and language comprehension come together to build skilled reading through increasingly automatic word recognition and increasingly strategic language comprehension. Much attention is paid to the word recognition portion of the rope, particularly for early elementary students/new readers, however, it is the increasingly strategic piece (note the labeled arrow on top of the rope) that enables the texture of thinking and understanding required for grade-level rigor at the middle and high school level.

What is Deeper Learning?

Like the science of reading, deeper learning is also a term difficult to pinpoint and precisely define. And, like the science of reading, deeper learning draws from multiple disciplines, fields, and traditions such as those listed in the aforementioned section. According to The Hewlett Foundation, deeper learning is the nexus of the competencies listed in the graphic below. Jal Mehta and Sarah Fine further suggest that deeper learning happens at the junction between mastery, identity, and creativity.

At its core, however, deeper learning cultivates that increasingly strategic avenue of comprehension from the top portion of Scarborough’s Reading Rope, representing experiences that are cognitively demanding, relevant, iterative, and engaging, preparing learners to succeed as global citizens. This approach to meaning-making privileges depth over breadth and considers the act of learning to be transformational as opposed to transactional. Given the complexity and ambiguity of the fast-paced global marketplace within which we live, the ability to think and to make informed decisions quickly, is invaluable, if not necessary.

The intersection of the Science of Reading and Deeper Learning

Independently, these two bodies of research are powerful drivers of curiosity and comprehension. But, together, they have the capacity to radically transform the watered down, low-level experiences that currently characterize American K-12 education. By harnessing the research-backed strength of both the science of reading and deeper learning, leaders and teachers can focus on what students are being asked to do (the tasks) and examine the resulting student work, to make targeted, data-informed instructional decisions that specifically build increasingly high-level and strategic thinking skills to increase student outcomes across a school or system.

To that end, all LDC resources are informed by and aligned to the vast body of research defined as the science of reading, and augmented by the research on deeper learning. Leaning on and integrating principles from both help raise up the educational experiences that are the current status quo. Through continuous product iteration based on student demonstrations of learning and practitioner feedback, LDC reinvigorates and rethinks curriculum, assessment and the professional learning that bolsters them. All students can master grade level text demonstrated through authentic disciplinary writing with appropriate scaffolding. And all teachers and leaders deserve access to more practices and materials that will bolster that endeavor.

In Support of Tier 1 Literacy Instruction

LDC Modules, to be clear, do not focus on phonemic awareness, phonics or fluency — the increasingly automatic reading skills identified on the Reading Rope shown above. Rather, they directly address the Language Comprehension portion of Tier 1 literacy instruction via mastery of discrete, standards-based skills and opportunities to socialize challenging ideas. To meet the needs of all learners via the science of reading approach, LDC modules also ensure that students have access to complex, culturally and linguistically relevant texts.

Our teacher resources and teaching tools support educators in providing their students with opportunities to build background knowledge on culturally relevant topics in grade level texts, build tier 3 vocabulary aligned to disciplinary subjects, engage in language structures and verbal reasoning through class discussions, and above all, build disciplinary literacy through standards aligned instructional strategies. In this way, LDC is rooted in both the science of reading and in deeper learning, developing and supporting students far beyond emergent reading strategies.

The deeper learning work is woven throughout and undergirds LDC’s module implementation through our equity-driven adult learning and leadership development practices. Research shows that high quality Tier 1 instruction is only possible for students if the educators responsible for delivering it are valued, invested in and developed to provide it. LDC has been proven by independent research in NYC and in LAUSD to do all three. Making space for adults to engage in deep learning (grounded in student work) quickly translates to the classroom because educators begin replicating their own experiences as learners. Deeper learning for students requires deeper learning for adults.

Developing the Adults to Support the Students

According to participant feedback, adult learning experiences facilitated by LDC are better than other professional learning because they are structured, hands-on, collaborative, and tailored. The clear objectives, supportive facilitators, and practical resources ensure that participants are ready to implement what they learn in a way that aligns with their schools’ needs and increases the rigor of student work. Participants identify and express appreciation for three specific actions embedded into the overall adult learning experiences: modeling/practical application, use of time and structure of learning, and collaboration and reflection. Through a focus on teacher Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) and a focus on developing leaders through Instructional Leadership Teams, language comprehension is studied and deeper learning competencies are modeled and practiced by the adults who support students. Research shows a direct correlation between this kind of professional learning and increased student achievement.

LDC’s student-facing modules function in similar ways in the classroom. The mini-tasks expose students to complex texts through multiple access points, culminating in a final product that requires understanding, analysis, and synthesis of concepts and, perhaps more significantly, requires students to engage in the deeper learning necessary to demonstrate true comprehension. These modules are backward designed to ensure that skills are practiced and strengthened multiple times throughout the learning experience and that the practice is deepened over time. The notion is to provide “just in time” scaffolds that are gradually released to position the cognitive demand of the work within the student’s zone of proximal development — making the demonstrations of language comprehension and disciplinary writing both rigorous and manageable for students.

This intersection between the science of reading and deeper learning uniquely positions LDC to help close the opportunity gap and adequately prepare our children to become contributing members of democratic society.

By supporting teachers, leaders, schools and districts with processes, resources, and developmental programs grounded in science of reading and deeper learning research and best practices, LDC helps transform schools into true learning organizations.

References

Gonzalez, J. (2023, April 2). What Is the Secret Sauce for Deeper Learning? Cult of Pedagogy. September 26, 2024, https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/deeper-learning/

Huberman, M., Duffy, H., Mason, J., Zeiser, K. L., and O’Day, J. (2016) School features and student opportunities for deeper learning: what makes a difference? American Institutes for Research.

Jong, M. (2023, October 27). What is the science of reading, and why does it matter?. TNTP. https://tntp.org/blog/what-is-the-science-of-reading-and-why-does-it-matter/

Mehta, J., & Fine, S. (2015, December). THE WHY, WHAT, WHERE, AND HOW OF DEEPER LEARNING IN AMERICAN SECONDARY SCHOOLS. Students at the Center. https://jfforg-prod-new.s3.amazonaws.com/media/documents/The-Why-What-Where-How-121415.pdf

Scarborough, H. S. (2001). Connecting early language and literacy to later reading (dis)abilities: Evidence, theory, and practice. In S. Neuman & D. Dickinson (Eds.), Handbook for research in early literacy (pp. 97–110). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

WHAT IS DEEPER LEARNING?. Engage in deeper learning. (n.d.). http://www.deeper-learning.org/