S4E23: Faith Borkowsky and Judy Boksner on “What’s Hot” in Literacy

Hi everyone, Zach Groshell here. Avid readers of my website will know that I was recently on a show called The Literacy View, which is also one of the podcasts in my listening rotation. It was with great excitement that I was able to snag hosts Judy and Faith for a very Literacy View episode of Progressively Incorrect. Topics we talked about included:

1. NAEP Scores and Post Pandemic Teaching

Today’s NAEP results reveal a heartbreaking reality for American students and confirm our worst fears: not only did most students not recover from pandemic-related learning loss, but those students who were the most behind and needed the most support have fallen even further behind. Despite the billions of dollars that the federal government invests in K-12 education annually, and the approximately $190 billion in federal pandemic funds, our education system continues to fail students across the nation.

2. What’s Hot in Literacy: Misguided Trends in a Divided Field

The 2024 findings highlight three topics as “extremely hot:” banned books, phonics/phonemic awareness, and the science of reading and structured literacy. There are also six topics found to be “very hot,” including artificial intelligence in literacy, cultural and linguistic diversity and literacy for multilingual learners, dyslexia and other specific learning disabilities, early literacy, high-quality instructional materials, and social justice/equity/anti-racism in literacy. Overall, the literacy field has received unprecedented focus this year, driven by legislative mandates in 38 states, policies on the science of reading, book banning, and discussions on essential early literacy skills for long-term academic and career success. 

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The podcast you’re listening to is sponsored by John Catt from Hachette Learning and hosted by Dr. Zach Groshell. John Catt publishes some of the best books in education, including Traditional Math, and the other book mentioned in the podcast, Just Tell Them: The Power of Explanations and Explicit Teaching.

You’re invited!

Finally, I wanted to invite you to some of the training events that I am putting on for Steplab in my role as the Director of Steplab North America. Check out my events page for more information, and let me know how I can help get you out to one of the fabulous cities that these training events are held in. See you there!