When you look up at the night sky, you see some stars that shine especially bright. They guide travelers, inspire wonder, and illuminate galaxies.

That’s how we think of the literacy educators who champion the Science of Reading. They brighten the path for countless students and light their way to lifelong literacy.

Making the shift to the Science of Reading is no small feat. It requires thoughtful engagement, systematic implementation, and the courage to change long-standing practices. Most importantly, it requires every part of an educational system to work in cosmic alignment for student success.

That’s why the Amplify Science of Reading Star Awards honor outstanding educators, schools, and districts who have transformed their classrooms with the Science of Reading.

We’re excited to celebrate another constellation of remarkable leaders in literacy development—and to invite you to be a part of it.

Leaders in early literacy skills at all levels

Successful Science of Reading implementation happens when everyone is on board. That means: classroom teachers mastering evidence-based teaching techniques, principals supporting school-wide initiatives, districts providing professional development, and entire communities supporting the shift.

Because this transformation requires such coordinated effort, our Science of Reading Star Awards recognize excellence across every level of education, with categories that reflect this multi-level approach.

Individual categories

• Teachers who exemplify Science of Reading principles in daily instruction
• Instructional coaches driving literacy transformation
• Administrators leading successful reading initiatives

School categories

• Schools demonstrating significant reading growth through Science of Reading implementation
• Educational teams working together to strengthen early literacy skills

District categories

• Districts orchestrating system-wide literacy development improvements
• Large-scale Science of Reading transformations with measurable results

How our educator awards honor the winners

All award winners receive a comprehensive package designed to support their leadership and amplify their impact. Recognition includes:

• Honorary Amplify Ambassadorship, which provides access to our community of literacy leaders.
• Your story featured on our website and social media.
• Science of Reading starter library of resources to continue your journey.
• Enrollment in Science of Reading: The Learning Lab (for you and a friend).
• Tons of swag, of course!

Grand prize winners in the District and School categories will also get access to an exclusive library of professional development resources. The grand prize winner in the Individual category will be our guest, all expenses paid, at the Reading League’s 10th annual conference in Chicago next fall.

How to nominate the literacy stars in your sky

Do you know educators whose Science of Reading work deserves recognition—like our 2025 winners? A school team that has transformed reading outcomes? A district that has successfully implemented evidence-based literacy practices system-wide?

These are the stars guiding us toward a future where every child can read with confidence and joy. Help us get to know them!

We are accepting nominations through Feb. 13, 2026, 11:59 p.m. ET. Submit your nomination today!

More to explore

• The Science of Reading
• The Amplify Science of Reading Star Awards
• Amplify Science of Reading district success stories
• Nominate a teacher for an award!

The post Apply for the 2026 Science of Reading Star Awards! appeared first on Amplify.

If you’ve been in the math world for a while, you know the name Desmos. It’s synonymous with free dynamic math tools.

And lately, you’ve probably also been hearing about Amplify and Desmos together. But other publishers also say they have Desmos, so what’s the deal?

Let’s clear it up.

The most important thing to know is that, back in 2022, the original Desmos split into two separate parts. Think of them like a calculators and other tools part and a classroom activities and curriculum part.

The tools part: Desmos Studio

This is the Desmos you first fell in love with.

What it is: Desmos Studio is the name of the company that builds and maintains the powerful, free Desmos calculators. This is an independent Public Benefit Corporation, and can be found at www.desmos.com. That team builds and maintains a collection of free math tools:

What it’s for: This is your go-to for exploration, demonstrations, and “What if I change this?” moments. It’s the blank canvas you use on your smartboard or the tool your students use for homework.

The bottom line: The calculators are run by an independent company called Desmos Studio PBC. You can find their tools for free at their website, desmos.com; on state tests; and in curriculum programs (including ours).

The lessons: Amplify Classroom & Amplify Desmos Math

What it is: In 2023, Amplify acquired the Desmos instructional platform (then called Desmos Classroom, now called Amplify Classroom) as well as their math curriculum for grades 6–8 and the teams that built those resources. We had already been working on our own math curriculum, decided to combine forces with the Desmos curriculum team, and created Amplify Desmos Math, now available for grades K–12.

When other publishers may talk about having “Desmos,” what they mean is they license the calculators and Geometry tool from Desmos Studio.

What it’s for: Amplify has these tools, too, but we also have the Activity Builder, which integrates these tools much more deeply than is possible with other Desmos Studio partnerships. We take this powerful Desmos technology and layer instruction, student collaboration, and dynamic teaching tools on top, creating classrooms that buzz with excitement and learning.

What’s available for free:

• The “Desmos activities” platform (you might know it from teacher.desmos.com), now Amplify Classroom. This is where you can find hundreds of free lessons and activities. You can also use the Activity Builder tool to create your own custom activities from scratch.
• The beloved, pre-built “Activity Builder” activities like “Marbleslides” and more are still available for free on Amplify Classroom.

The bottom line: Educators can still use the vast library of free activities and build their own on Amplify Classroom. This is not changing.

The core curriculum: Amplify Desmos Math

This is the new, comprehensive curriculum available to districts and schools.

What it is: This is a full core math curriculum for grades K–12 that Amplify has built in collaboration with the Desmos curriculum team that joined us a few years ago. It uses the Desmos instructional philosophy and tools as its backbone, but it’s much more than a collection of activities.

What it’s for: This program is designed to be your primary, day-to-day curriculum. It includes a complete, standards-aligned scope and sequence, print materials, digital lessons (with activities enhanced and aligned to standards), assessments, intervention resources, and personalized practice.

The bottom line: If you want a complete curriculum in which every lesson is built on polished Desmos-style activities, you want Amplify Desmos Math K–12. This core curriculum is offered exclusively by Amplify.

Quick-reference chart

	What is it?	Where to find it?	Cost
Desmos Studio Tools	Powerful math tools and calculators (graphing, scientific, etc.) for graphing, calculations, and geometry visualizations.	Access via desmos.com or embedded in partner products	Free for individual use
Amplify Classroom	A teaching and learning platform that couples Desmos Studio tools with instruction and collaboration tools – Rich activities and lessons that develop understanding with Responsive Feedback – Collaboration and facilitation tools designed for the classroom – Student ideas used to build new problems and scenarios Browse free activities and lessons or build your own with Activity Builder.	Only available from Amplify at amplify.com/classroom (previously Desmos Classroom)	Free
Amplify Desmos Math	A comprehensive K–12 math curriculum built on the Amplify Classroom platform – Ready-to-teach print and digital curriculum built on the Amplify Classroom platform – Comprehensive coverage of all standards without the searching. – Additional support for your classroom, including assessment, differentiation, practice, professional development, and more.	Try lessons for free on Amplify Classroom Contact us for more information on purchasing for your district	With a paid subscription

The post Other publishers say they have “Desmos.” What’s the difference between what Amplify has and what they have? appeared first on Amplify.

For years, Reena Mathew taught reading the way many educators were trained to—using traditional practices that were familiar and common, but not grounded in up-to-date research.

That changed when she began studying how children actually learn to read. What she discovered reshaped not only her instruction, but her approach to supporting teachers.

Today, Mathew is the K–2 literacy coach helping Suffern Central School District in New York State make a major shift toward research-based early literacy instruction.

Her leadership, dedication, and hands-on support—as well as the key role she plays in creating measurable student success—have earned her a 2025 Amplify Science of Reading Star Award, which specifically recognizes her as Changemaker of the year. These awards honor outstanding educators, schools, and districts who are transforming classrooms and students with literacy practices grounded in the Science of Reading.

“Once I dug into the science,” Mathew says, “I realized that explicit, systematic instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, and knowledge building isn’t just beneficial, it’s essential.”

Helping teachers shift to research-based instruction

Suffern Central serves nearly 4,000 students in grades K–12, and Mathew has been a leading force in strengthening early literacy development across the district’s youngest grades.

“I shifted my focus to supporting both foundational skills and language comprehension,” she says. “Students need both pieces, phonics and content-rich instruction, to truly become strong, confident readers.” Mathew also dedicated herself to targeted professional development, helping teachers implement the University of Florida Literacy Institute (UFLI) Foundations and the Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) Knowledge strand.

To lead that shift for teachers, Mathew approached change collaboratively, not prescriptively. She modeled lessons, coached side-by-side, and broke big shifts into manageable steps.

It didn’t take long. “Within weeks, teachers saw students who had struggled with decoding and spelling [already] reading and spelling words with more accuracy and fluency,” she says.

From early literacy skills to independence and confidence for all

What’s more, students figured out that they could use those same strategies elsewhere.

“[Teachers] saw kids using the strategies they were taught not just during the phonics lessons,” Mathew says, “but in their independent reading and writing as well.”

Incorporating Amplify CKLA’s Knowledge strand helped deepen student learning, as well as teachers’ confidence in the approach.

“Teachers shared stories of students using academic vocabulary in ways they never had before and making connections between read-alouds and real-world discussions,” Mathew says. “When a classroom teacher sees a student who is struggling suddenly apply a decoding strategy or use academic vocabulary in conversation, they realize their instruction is working.”

According to Mathew, her greatest achievement has been helping teachers see the impact of using research-based instruction in real time.

A commitment beyond instruction

Mathew is driven not just by the science, but by what she believes every child deserves. Students arrive at school with different levels of language exposure and background knowledge, and research-based instruction provides the explicit foundational skills and systematic knowledge-building all students need to read.

“We can’t control our students’ home lives, what experiences they come in with, and what support they have outside of school, but we can control what happens in our classrooms. We can make sure they get explicit instruction in foundational skills, build the vocabulary and knowledge they need to comprehend complex texts, and leave our schools as confident readers,” Mathew says. “Educators should make the shift to the Science of Reading because good instruction levels the playing field and gives every child an equal opportunity to succeed.”

More to explore

• The Science of Reading
• The Amplify Science of Reading Star Awards
• Amplify Science of Reading district success stories
• Nominate a teacher for an award!

The post Meet Reena Mathew, a changemaker supporting early literacy with the Science of Reading. appeared first on Amplify.

Bruin Point Elementary sits at the base of Utah’s Book Cliff Mountain Range in the small mining town of Sunnyside, 30 miles from the nearest district hub. With just 107 students, and one teacher per grade, it’s Carbon School District’s smallest school—and now one of its brightest early literacy success stories.

All of Bruin Point’s students face significant systemic barriers, with 100% qualifying for free lunch. Yet when it comes to literacy development, the school’s educators have achieved something remarkable.

In just one year, their student literacy proficiency rates jumped 19 percentage points—from 39% at the beginning of the year to 58% by mid-year.

That’s why Bruin Point Elementary has been named a Literacy Legend in our 2025 Science of Reading Star Awards. These awards honor educators, schools, and districts that have transformed classrooms and empowered students through the Science of Reading.

Teaching early literacy skills in a community with challenges

Sunnyside tells the story of many rural American communities. “Since the closing of the local mines, there has been an increase in the number of unemployed family members,” says Cindy Garcia, Bruin Point’s principal.

As a result, an already high poverty rate has risen still further, along with levels of substance abuse, neglect, behavioral issues, and more. Parent involvement in school is extremely low, according to Garcia. “Basic needs take priority.”

Yet Garcia and her six-teacher team saw potential where others might have seen obstacles. They understood that their students deserved the strongest possible foundation in early literacy skills. And they knew they had to make a change.

The importance of relying on data

“Many of us had been trained in methods that didn’t fully meet the needs of all students, and shifting the mindset required trust, training, and time,” says fifth-grade teacher Tyler Grundy. “Our biggest challenge wasn’t just learning a new approach. It was unlearning old ones. But we stayed the course.”

Four of the six teachers completed LETRS training, with two more currently working through it. Teachers began to trade guesswork for systematic, explicit classroom instruction, using data to guide their early literacy program.

“We equipped our teachers with the knowledge and tools to teach reading explicitly and systematically,” Grundy says. “We relied on data, not assumptions, to guide our instruction and interventions.”

Building literacy and knowledge together

The school implemented Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA), providing systematic phonics instruction and rich content knowledge that builds comprehension.

“CKLA weaves literacy skills together to help make my students proficient readers and writers,” says first-grade teacher Chelsea Timothy. “They’re making connections between the Greek myth of Arachne and spiders being arachnids. They put together a web of knowledge.”

Just having a wealth of content at their fingertips made a huge difference, too, and the instructors learned quickly how to leverage it.

“I didn’t have to spend countless hours looking for content,” said Julia Sanders, a first-year kindergarten teacher. “It saved me time, so I could focus on making it more encouraging for the kids.”

For second-grade teacher Francie Aufdemorte, having comprehensive materials meant being able to focus on instruction. “It reduced the stress of creating lesson plans from scratch,” she says. “I was nervous about the rigor, but my students have excelled with it.”

Building a culture in which “success is expected”

The 19-point proficiency jump speaks to real student growth, but Garcia knows the impact goes beyond test scores.

“Struggling students who once guessed at words began to decode with confidence,” she said. “We built a culture where reading success is expected and not left to chance.”

Bruin Point’s success rests on ongoing commitment to evidence-based practices. Garcia and her team continue meeting regularly for data discussions, sustaining the mindset shift that began their journey to improved student outcomes.

“Our interventions and extensions are like a well-oiled machine,” Garcia said. “We can see that the young ones are off to a much better start.”

She adds: “We didn’t just change our curriculum, we changed lives. And that is a legacy worth celebrating.”

More to explore

• The Science of Reading
• The Amplify Science of Reading Star Awards
• Amplify Science of Reading district success stories
• Nominate a teacher for an award!

The post Leading in early literacy with science-based practices appeared first on Amplify.

Madison County Schools is a diverse district serving nearly 13,000 students across 23 schools in central Mississippi. Over the past few years, the district has shifted its approach from balanced literacy to structured literacy. The transition wasn’t quick or simple—but it worked.

In 2016, the district’s elementary ELA proficiency was at 47.1%. By the spring of 2024, it had reached almost 70%, with all elementary schools receiving A ratings for the first time.

“Today, structured literacy is at the core of our instruction, and the results speak for themselves,” said Kacey Matthews, dyslexia coordinator for the district. “This historic achievement affirms that when we commit to evidence-based instruction, students thrive.”

That commitment, and the resulting achievement, has earned Madison County Schools our 2025 Science of Reading Star Awards District Captain award. These teacher awards honor educators, schools, and districts who’ve transformed their classrooms and empowered their students with the Science of Reading.

The constants: Building literacy and a love of reading

Madison County Schools spans four zones, from suburban to rural. Roughly one-third of its schools are Title I, and its teachers support more than 1,200 multilingual/English learners representing 36 languages. Nearly 40% of students in the district receive free or reduced-price lunch.

Madison County originally followed a balanced literacy model, but over time, educators began to see gaps—particularly among students experiencing reading difficulty and students with dyslexia.

“Our diverse student body underscores our belief that literacy is the key to unlocking potential,” Matthews said. Teachers came to understand that their shared desire to support a love of reading in their students and their dedication to paramount literacy goals had to be anchored in a curriculum aligned to the Science of Reading: explicit, systematic instruction in phonemic awareness, decoding, and language comprehension.

Shifting practices and mindsets

According to Matthews, transitioning from balanced to structured literacy required more than a change in instructional methods. “The biggest challenge,” she said, “was shifting instructional mindsets.”

In classrooms, educators needed to trade in the familiar tools of running records and predictable texts for a new framework built on foundational skills data. “Initially, some educators were hesitant, but ongoing professional learning, hands-on support, and student success stories built trust and proved the effectiveness of this approach,” Matthews said.

District leaders, principals, and teachers also worked together to create a shared vision for literacy grounded in evidence and collaboration. Madison County invested in professional learning through LETRS, Phonics First, and the AIM Institute, ensuring every educator had the tools to teach early literacy skills effectively.

Each school added trained literacy specialists who provided classroom coaching and MTSS interventions, and the district instituted dyslexia training for all 1,500 staff members every three years, ensuring consistent understanding of structured literacy principles across every grade.

Principals received targeted professional development to lead with clarity, and the district introduced new, research-based curricula—including Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA)—to align instruction from kindergarten through fifth grade. To unify these efforts, Madison County also rewrote its Literacy Expectations guide, a districtwide roadmap detailing the five essential components of literacy, classroom strategies, and links to foundational research.

All told, Madison County teachers and leaders have reimagined classroom practice, embracing a structured literacy framework grounded in the Science of Reading.

From anxiety to confidence

In addition to the district’s impressive leap in literacy proficiency of more than 20 percentage points, they also saw transformation on the Mississippi Third-Grade Reading Assessment, a high-stakes gate test of readiness for fourth grade. Equipped with strong foundational skills, Madison County’s third graders are now thriving—with a 99.7% promotion rate in 2024.

“Instead of facing [the test] with fear, our students now enter with confidence,” Matthews said. In other words, data only tells one part of the story. “Students who previously dreaded assessments now approach them with readiness,” she said. “Students who once struggled with decoding now read with confidence and fluency.”

Sustaining a culture of literacy and growth

Madison County’s progress rests on persistence as much as innovation. The district’s educators continue to meet regularly for data discussions, lesson study, and reflection—sustaining the same mindset shift that began this journey. Professional learning remains a constant for them, demonstrating their dedication to teaching excellence and their belief that educational approaches are never static.

According to Matthews, Amplify has been a trusted partner in that work. Teachers can target support with precision by using mCLASS® for progress monitoring and the mCLASS Dyslexia Screener for early identification. Several schools also use Amplify CKLA to build decoding and comprehension simultaneously, engaging students with content-rich texts that deepen knowledge and vocabulary.

“When we commit to the Science of Reading, we are not just building better readers,” Matthews said, “we’re building a brighter future.”

More to explore

• The Science of Reading
• The Amplify Science of Reading Star Awards
• Amplify Science of Reading district success stories
• Nominate a teacher for an award!

The post Madison County Schools: Early literacy success through the Science of Reading appeared first on Amplify.

Every picture book on your classroom shelf holds mathematical treasures waiting to be discovered! What if every read-aloud could go beyond a literacy moment to become a catalyst for mathematical sense-making? This question lies at the heart of Allison Hintz and Antony T. Smith’s delightful and informative book, Mathematizing Children’s Literature: Sparking Connections, Joy, and Wonder Through Read-Alouds and Discussion.

Many teachers have used traditional counting books and shape-focused stories to support students in connecting mathematics to literature. According to Hintz and Smith, you can challenge readers to extend and expand upon these experiences in ways that provide more space for them to make sense of stories; ask their own questions; see mathematics authentically in the world; and make connections between the stories, the math, and their lives. That’s the promise of mathematizing—approaching any story with a mathematical lens.

The concept of “mathematizing” goes beyond simply finding numbers in a story. Children are naturally curious and construct meaning by noticing, exploring, explaining, and modeling. The story context becomes a place to play and practice seeing math everywhere in our world. As we read a story aloud and pause to ask, “What do you notice? What do you wonder?,” students are able to surface structure, compare quantities, model situations, and justify their ideas, all while staying rooted in characters, plot, setting, and theme. The result is a classroom where math feels joyful, meaningful, connected, and accessible.

In this post, we’ll explore simple moves to mathematize your next read-aloud, sample prompts to elevate discussion, and follow-up activities to turn your library into a launchpad for mathematical thinking!

Mathematizing process and structure

While there’s no one way to facilitate a mathematical read-aloud, the following steps can help you get started:

1. Explore books in your current library. There are no hard and fast rules for choosing the right book to mathematize, because a book can spark mathematical ideas in many ways. Look for books that a) are overtly ‘mathy’ where the math is central to the story’s plot, b) have illustrations that provide opportunities to explore the math in them, and/or c) have a story that inspires mathematical thinking, even if the math isn’t central to the story’s plot.
2. Read the book aloud for the first time. The first read is a wonderful opportunity for students to hear and enjoy the story itself.
3. Ask students what they noticed and wondered. As students share their responses, record them on a piece of chart paper to revisit later. If no responses pertain to the math in the story, you can follow up with the question, “Where did you see math in the story?”
4. Reread the book a second time or revisit a specific page in the book. At this point, you want to start to focus on the math the students will explore in the book. You can either reread the entire story and pause on strategic pages that center on the mathematical ideas, or revisit specific pages in the story. (If the story is longer,it will probably be easiest to just flip back to specific pages.)
5. Elicit student thinking. Ask students what math questions they could ask based on the pages they revisited.
6. Give students a follow-up math activity. This could be based on a question the students mentioned earlier in this process, or one the teacher has planned.

Mathematizing examples

To save you time finding a book to use, we’ve outlined a plan based on some of our favorite books to mathematize (listed by grade band).

And with all the upcoming holidays and opportunities to gather with friends and family, we were also inspired to use Spaghetti and Meatballs for All! by Marilyn Burns in a mathematizing read-aloud. Follow this link to find K–2 and 3–5 lesson plans for this book that you can use right away!

The post Discovering and exploring mathematics in every story appeared first on Amplify.

Comprehension isn’t just a process, or just a product—it’s both. And connecting reading and understanding is what most teachers are working on every day.

That fundamental connection was the focus of our recent Science of Reading Webinar Week: Comprehension Connections—Building the Bridge Between Reading and Understanding, a five-day, expert-filled series that unpacked what really drives comprehension, from early decoding to middle school mastery.

Here’s a quick look at what you’ll learn when you watch—and a few ideas you can use right away.

Day 1: What Is Reading Comprehension, Anyway?

Speaker: Susan Lambert, Ed.D., Chief Academic Officer, Literacy, Amplify; Host of Science of Reading: The Podcast

If you ask ten teachers to define comprehension, you might get twelve answers. Lambert opened the week by grounding everyone in the Science of Reading, including the Simple View of Reading and the Reading Rope. Skilled reading, she reminded viewers, is the result of multiple strands—decoding, language comprehension, and knowledge—woven together over time.

The takeaway? The most effective approaches don’t teach comprehension strategies—such as “find the main idea”—in isolation. Rather, they connect word recognition to meaning through rich texts, conversation, and writing. Whether you’re teaching second-grade reading comprehension or sixth-grade reading comprehension, students need the same thing: a clear path from sounding out words to making sense of ideas.

Day 2: Comprehension and Knowledge Building: A Two-Way Street

Speakers: Sonia Cabell, Ph.D., Sigmon Endowed Professor of Reading Education, Florida State University

HyeJin Hwang, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Educational Psychology, University of Minnesota Twin Cities

“Better background knowledge leads to improved reading comprehension, which in turn enables readers to learn more from text, thereby building additional knowledge.” —HyeJin Hwang, Ph.D.

In their session, Sonia Cabell and HyeJin Hwang explored one of the clearest findings in reading research: Comprehension and knowledge develop together. Cabell began by explaining how comprehension (including oral language, background knowledge, vocabulary, syntax, and verbal reasoning) forms one of the essential strands of the Reading Rope.

Students can’t activate knowledge they don’t yet have. Teachers need to help them build it early, and intentionally. Cabell’s research found that integrating literacy and content instruction produced gains in vocabulary and content knowledge.

Likewise, Hwang’s two large-scale longitudinal studies showed that better knowledge instruction leads to better reading, which leads to even more knowledge. These findings held true across languages and grade levels, underscoring the universal value of content-rich instruction.

Classroom takeaways:

• Plan literacy units around connected science or social studies topics to build coherent knowledge.
• Use content-rich interactive read-alouds with discussion before, during, and after reading.
• Ask inferential comprehension questions (“Why?” “How?”) that require students to connect ideas using their own words.
• Encourage quick writing or drawing tasks that help students show what they’ve learned.

Day 3: Where and How to Measure Comprehension to Drive Improvement

Speakers: Danielle Damico, Ph.D., Executive Director of Learning Science, Amplify

Gina Biancarosa, Ed.D., Ann Swindells Chair in Education, University of Oregon

“Reading comprehension is both a process and a product.” —Danielle Damico, Ph.D.

Too often, comprehension is measured only as a finished product—how well students answer questions after reading—without revealing how they built understanding along the way. This session explored what comprehension actually involves: reading words accurately, understanding their meaning, applying background knowledge, and making inferences. As researcher Sharon Vaughn, Ph.D., has described, these interconnected skills all work together as students learn to read.

Biancarosa showed how looking at comprehension as a complex process helps teachers see student thinking in action. She described the major types of inferences—lexical, bridging, gap-filling, and causal—and the importance of understanding how students connect ideas and construct meaning.

Try this:

• Treat comprehension as ongoing thinking, not a one-time test score.
• Use brief think-alouds or class discussions to get a look at how students connect ideas.
• Match assessments to the precise question you’re trying to answer.
• Let assessment guide instruction—data should lead directly to next steps.

Day 4: Comprehension in Middle School: More Important Than Ever

Speaker: Deb Sabin, Chief Academic Officer, Amplify ELA

“Writing done right encodes knowledge. And discourse done right gets into the realm of higher-order thinking.” —Deb Sabin

By the time you’re teaching fourth-grade reading comprehension through sixth-grade reading comprehension, decoding should be automatic. At this stage, the upper strands of the Reading Rope—vocabulary, background knowledge, and syntax—move to the forefront. In this session, Deb Sabin highlighted how comprehension in middle school relies on academic knowledge, disciplinary vocabulary, and structured discourse—and how it truly blossoms when reading, writing, and speaking reinforce one another.

Classroom moves that help:

• Pair writing with reading: Even short, text-based responses consolidate knowledge in long-term memory.
• Use structured discussion (“accountable talk”), where students cite text evidence and build on one another’s ideas.
• Center rich, grade-level texts that challenge thinking and vocabulary.

Day 5: Finding the Missing Link in Reading Comprehension to Boost Literacy Success

Speaker: Julie A. Van Dyke, Ph.D., Clinical Assistant Professor, Yale University Child Study Center; Research Scientist, Yale-UConn Haskins Global Literacy Hub

“Teach phonics for decoding. Teach syntax for understanding.” —Julie A. Van Dyke, Ph.D.

In the final presentation of the series, Julie Van Dyke explored an often-overlooked element of comprehension: syntax—the way words combine to create meaning. Van Dyke argued that syntax is to comprehension what phonics is to decoding.

She illustrated how the Science of Reading and the Reading Rope locate syntax within the language-comprehension strands—critical to understanding who did what to whom in complex sentences. Explicitly teaching sentence structure helps all learners, including multilingual/English learners, access higher-level meaning.

Simple practices can make a difference:

• Have students paraphrase tricky sentences. (Starter question: “Who’s doing the action?”)
• Pull strong sentences from your class texts to show how structure shapes meaning.
• Encourage students to mirror those structures in their own writing.

What linked all five sessions together? The understanding that comprehension develops when teachers connect the code, the language, and the knowledge. Whether students are decoding in second grade or crafting essays in sixth, they thrive when we help them move from reading to understanding—step by step, strand by strand.

Watch all five on-demand recordings.

More to explore:

• Download your Comprehension 101 bundle.
• Read (and comprehend!): Reading comprehension strategies grounded in science
• Listen to this special Essentials episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, where Susan Lambert and other experts distill key reading comprehension insights.

The post Making reading comprehension connections appeared first on Amplify.

Amplify’s 2024–25 research brief on the latest end-of-year literacy data showed improvement in early literacy across grades K–2, with more young learners on track to learn to read and fewer far behind than at any time since the pandemic.

Compared to 2020–21, 8% more second graders, 14% more first graders, and 21% more kindergarteners were at or above benchmark.

We also found that while boys in grades K–2 score the same or better than girls of the same age in reading readiness at the beginning of the year, girls improved more during the school year, narrowing gaps and sometimes outperforming boys by end of year.

A complex picture of early readers

The data present a nuanced picture of gender disparities in early literacy.

Among K–2 students who were on track to learn to read at the end of the 2024–25 school year, boys began the year with the same or better early reading scores than girls.

But in spite of this slim advantage, girls were ahead of boys by the end of kindergarten and first grade. Girls again narrowed the gap in second grade, but boys were still slightly ahead at the end of the year.

Similarities below the literacy benchmark

The story was similar for K–2 students at risk of not learning to read.

Across K–2, girls scored the same or better than boys, and the same trend emerged with students who were on track: During the year, girls showed more improvement than boys.

As a result, by the end of the year, fewer girls were at risk of not learning to read than boys.

Toward reading readiness

The latest end-of-year data show that student performance in early reading is at the highest levels since the lows of the pandemic five years ago. More students are on track for learning to read and fewer are far behind in grades K–2. But despite these successes, broad literacy trends across the United States remain a concern, as year-over-year progress across all early grades has slowed. As schools and districts align on priorities ahead of the new school year, they must take into account students who are learning to read. It’s important that schools and districts invest in a reliable universal screener, high-quality core curriculum, evidence-based interventions, and professional development.

“Grades K–2 remain critical years for literacy development,” said Susan Lambert, Chief Academic Officer of elementary humanities at Amplify and the host of Science of Reading: The Podcast. “To support young readers, educators need data-driven insights into student reading development and instructional practices that are based in the Science of Reading.”

Teachers and administrators can best support all students with data-driven strategies and tools for reaching literary benchmarks, including:

• Administering elementary reading assessments three times a year to monitor student risk level for reading challenges.
• Supporting students at risk for not learning to read by analyzing data from reading assessments and making informed decisions.
• Allocating extra classroom time and resources to help students who aren’t on track.
• Monitoring progress and making adjustments as needed.
• Ensuring that evidence-based reading instruction is offered at every grade level.
• Instilling a love of reading in and out of school, in partnership with caregivers and community.

How we gather data

Amplify mCLASS, our teacher-administered literary assessment and intervention suite for grades K–6, is powered by Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS^Ⓡ) 8th Edition—an observational assessment collected by teachers interacting with students one on one, either live or over video, typically administered three times a year (beginning, middle, and end of year).

At the end of the school year, our report highlights reading scores by comparing Amplify mCLASS with DIBELS benchmark data from the preceding six school years (2019–20 through 2024–25).

Our data represent approximately 250,000 students in a matched set of 1,400 schools in 43 states. The schools in the source data are slightly more likely to be in large urban metropolitan areas than the nation overall, but perform comparably to the much larger mCLASS national population.

Additional resources

Let’s keep the conversation going! Join the discussion in our Amplify learning communities.

Dive into the findings in our End-of-Year Report.

More to explore

Science of Reading: The Podcast

Beyond My Years podcast

Science of Reading

Science of Reading: A New Teacher’s Guide ebook

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Have you ever listened to a student read aloud fluently about something—say, the life cycle of sea turtles—only to discover afterward that they couldn’t explain a single thing about…the life cycle of sea turtles? It’s a familiar classroom moment, and it reveals how easy it is to misunderstand what comprehension really is.

Comprehension is often framed only as the product of reading: the answers students give when asked to find the main idea, identify a theme, or summarize a passage.

But the Science of Reading tells us that comprehension is more than an outcome. Comprehension is also a dynamic process that unfolds as readers move through a text, powered by the interactions among words on the page and the knowledge and reasoning they bring to it. That’s why we like to think of it as the heartbeat of literacy.

Why comprehension is both product and process

For decades, much of classroom instruction has focused on language comprehension products: the demonstrations of understanding that happen after reading. Those are important, but they don’t tell the whole story.

That’s because products depend on processes. If students do not build a coherent mental model of what they’re reading—while they’re reading—they may succeed at reading, but not at comprehending.

This is the missing link that researchers like Hugh Catts, Ph.D., and Jane Oakhill, Ph.D., have revealed: Comprehension isn’t something readers suddenly have at the end of a passage. It’s also something they do all along the way.

What comprehension processes look like

Comprehension processes are the mental moves students make to construct meaning as they read. All students need explicit instruction and practice in order to learn to do this automatically. Some of the most important processes include:

• Inference-making: Filling in gaps the author leaves unsaid. If a story says “Carlos forgot his umbrella and got wet,” readers must supply the missing piece: It rained.
• Anaphora resolution: Figuring out who pronouns such as he or she refer to. For instance, in a passage where “Charmaine passed the ball to Kendra, and she scored,” not all readers may track that she refers to Kendra.
• Monitoring meaning: Noticing when something doesn’t make sense and rereading to fix it. Think of a student breezing through a science lab procedure but not realizing they’ve misunderstood a key step.
• Recognizing connectives: Using words like because, however, or meanwhile to understand how ideas fit together in a text about history, math, or literature.
• Visualizing: Building a mental picture—whether that’s of how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, or how a character’s feelings shift across a story.

When these processes don’t happen, comprehension breaks down—even for students who can decode fluently. That’s why teaching comprehension can’t mean just assigning comprehension questions. It has to mean teaching students how to think with text in real time.

The role of knowledge and writing

Processes don’t exist in isolation. They depend on, and are strengthened by, what students already know and what they can express in writing.

• Knowledge: The more background students bring to a text, the easier it is for them to make inferences and connect ideas. A child who already knows a little about baseball will understand a passage about a pitcher’s strategy much more readily than one encountering the game for the first time.

• Writing: Writing about reading reinforces comprehension. When students summarize a biography in their own words, draft a response to a novel, or synthesize ideas from multiple sources, they are practicing the very processes—like making connections and organizing ideas—that skilled readers rely on.

This interplay—reading feeding knowledge, knowledge feeding comprehension, writing reinforcing both—creates a cycle of literacy growth that goes far beyond the end-of-text quiz.

Rethinking classroom practice

Working on individual comprehension skills can help in the short term. But long-term literacy success—for all students—requires explicit instruction and practice in all the comprehension processes needed to build comprehension products.

So what does it mean to teach comprehension as a process, not just a product?

Weaving effective instruction in comprehension strategies into everyday literacy work. A few examples:

• Model your thinking. Pause mid-reading to ask, “Who does she refer to here?” or “That didn’t make sense—let’s go back.”

• Highlight connectives. Teach words like although or consequently explicitly, showing how they signal relationships between ideas.

• Promote monitoring. Encourage students to ask themselves, “Does this make sense?” and to reread when it doesn’t.

• Build knowledge deliberately. Use content-rich texts in science, history, and the arts to give students the context they need for stronger comprehension.

• Pair reading with writing. Even short written responses—“Why do you think the character acted that way?”—help solidify understanding and make comprehension processes visible.

These practices shift comprehension instruction from an after-the-fact check to an in-the-moment skill set students can carry into every subject.

Want to dig deeper?

Expanding our understanding of comprehension as both product and process is one of the most important shifts the Science of Reading has brought to literacy instruction. It reminds us that comprehension isn’t just a mysterious outcome at the end of reading—it’s the ongoing work of making meaning along the way.

To help educators explore this shift, we’ve created the new Science of Reading: Comprehension 101 bundle. These resources break down the research and provide strategies you can use right away. When we teach comprehension as the ongoing process it truly is, we keep the heartbeat of literacy strong for every reader.

Inside, you’ll find the following resources:

• Our anchor ebook: Understanding Comprehension: The Heartbeat of Literacy
• Infographic: The missing link in reading comprehension
• Ebook: Knowledge, Reading, and Writing: The Secret Recipe for Literacy Success
• Podcast: “Science of Reading Essentials: Comprehension” episode and listening guide
• Webinar: Rethinking Reading Comprehension: Reflections on Hugh Catts’ and Jane Oakhill’s Research

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