RECOMMENDATION

Families should be engaged as full partners in their children’s development as readers.

   
 
RECOMMENDATION

Professional development should be ongoing, data-driven and linked to practice.

   
 
RECOMMENDATION

Programs should have enough intensity and depth to impact children’s literacy development.

   
 
RECOMMENDATION

Developmentally appropriate assessments should inform instruction.

   
 
RECOMMENDATION

Curriculum should be language-rich across subject areas.

Leading the Conversation:
Turning the Page for Reading Success

Leading the Conversation

A compelling body of research identifies third grade reading as a critical benchmark that strongly predicts children’s chances of success in school and beyond. Yet 43% of Massachusetts third graders read below grade level. With the path to reading success beginning at birth and including high-quality early education, Strategies for Children in 2010 commissioned “Turning the Page: Refocusing Massachusetts for Reading Success” from Nonie Lesaux, Ph.D., a nationally known literacy expert at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

“Leading the Conversation” is a series of events designed to help leaders and practitioners serving children from birth to age 9 implement the research-based recommendations in “Turning the Page.” Each event features experts summarizing research and practitioners describing how they are integrating the report’s recommendations into their work. The series—and its companion Massachusetts Third Grade Reading Proficiency Learning Network—complements the statewide policy work that resulted in An Act Relative to Third Grade Reading Proficiency, which Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick signed into law in September 2012 and which is also informed by “Turning the Page.”

Materials
Turning the Page: Refocusing Massachusetts for Reading Success
Full Report   |   Executive Summary
Chart: A Developing Reader’s Journey
Chart: Making it Happen
“The Young Reader's Journey" audio slide show
Fast Facts about your community
Research & Resources
Double Jeopardy: How Third-Grade Reading Skills and Poverty Influence High School Graduation Donald J. Hernandez, Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2011
Literacy Challenges for the Twenty-First CenturyFuture of Children, 2012
Full Journal    |    Executive Summary    |    Policy Brief
Lead for Literacy (series of one-page memos)Language Diversity and Literacy Development Research Group, Harvard Graduate School of Education, 2012
Campaign for Grade-Level Reading
The PreK-3rd Grade National Work Group
Encouraging Your Child to Read    |    Fomentando la Lectura en tus Hijos


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