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Awakening the brilliance of every child begins with high expectations and evidence-aligned instruction that builds strong foundations for language and literacy.
Written by: Kari Kurto, National Director of Policy and Partnerships
While listening to Dr. Kymyona Burk’s presentation at The Reading League Conference earlier this month, she shared a quote from Calvin Lloyd: “Nobody rises to low expectations.”
The quote captures an essential principle of evidence-aligned instruction: We must hold high expectations for every child and ensure that our teaching gives each child the opportunity to meet them.
I was reminded of this principle while listening to the first two episodes of Season 2 of Sold a Story. In the new season, journalist Emily Hanford explores the work of Zig Engelmann, who developed Direct Instruction and applied its principles to teaching young children. Engelmann certainly did not believe in low expectations for children or adults. As Hanford explains, his guiding principle was, “When a student doesn’t understand something, it’s probably not the student that’s the problem–it’s probably the teaching.”
The teaching.
I agree with my good friend, renowned neuroscientist Dr. Melina Uncapher, who told The Reading League’s state education agency community of practice, “I have studied tens of thousands of brains, and one thing I know for certain is that every brain is brilliant and every brain is learning every second of every day.”
As educators and educational leaders, we must hold this truth to be self-evident. Every brain is brilliant; therefore, every child deserves high expectations and access to instruction that supports learning. I believe most educators genuinely hold these expectations. Yet the fear of age-appropriateness, combined with instructional practices many of us initially learned, does not always provide the explicit teaching and guidance every child needs to learn successfully.
In Episode 1 of the new season of Sold a Story, “It’s Not Just Reading,” Hanford shares the voices of educators who describe facilitating a math lesson rather than explicitly teaching students the concepts they need to learn. The assumption is that students can discover the concepts on their own and teach themselves.
I recognized a similar pattern in my own balanced literacy training. When learning to teach interactive read-alouds, for example, I was instructed to provide opportunities for students to “stop and jot” about what they thought the story was about, then share their thinking with a partner in the hope that comprehension would transfer to the partner group. During group discussions, we were told that students could begin by talking about anything at all, even if it was not relevant to the text, to build a community where children could take risks.
Building community and creating a classroom where children feel comfortable taking risks are important. But these practices, without sufficient guidance and instruction, can act as a sieve for knowledge, offering many opportunities for misunderstanding and far too few for actual learning.
The science of learning tells us that the classroom environment matters. Creating a space where students feel seen, heard, and motivated is essential to facilitating learning. But the environment alone is not enough. We must also consider how we teach.
What does Sold a Story Season 2 mean for Pre-K instruction?
“Language was the core that they lacked”
In Episode 2 of Season 2 of Sold a Story, Hanford explores how Engelmann applied Direct Instruction in a preschool setting. The description of the program is striking in its simplicity:
“The children were divided into small groups. And they got formal lessons. Twenty minutes of math instruction. Twenty minutes of reading instruction. And twenty minutes of language instruction. Zig said the language instruction was the most important.”
Language instruction was not an afterthought. Engelmann recognized that children needed a strong foundation in language to benefit from subsequent instruction.
As he explained, “Language was the core that they lacked.”
In the episode, we hear Cookie Bruner, one of the preschool’s teachers, describe how children sometimes struggled to understand seemingly simple language structures. For example, when asked to choose a pencil or a book, some children would select both. The children needed to learn what “or” means and how to interpret it in context.
Educators and leaders might assume that children will naturally acquire the language they need through everyday experiences. However, assuming that exposure alone will provide every child with the language they need leaves too much to chance. This is particularly true in this day and age of screen usage.
Engelmann’s approach sought to address these differences through structured, explicit instruction. As Hanford describes, key principles included: “Use repetition. Use lots of examples. Use short explanations.”
These principles illustrate the importance of making instruction clear, providing opportunities to practice, and checking whether children understand what is being taught. When a child struggles, educators must examine not only what the child knows, but also whether instruction has made the intended learning accessible.
This is an important conversation to have about Pre-K. Young children absolutely need play, exploration, conversation, and rich social interactions. They also need knowledgeable educators who intentionally build their language and literacy skills. The question is not whether preschool should be playful or instructional. It is about integrating both in ways that reflect what research tells us about how children learn.
Connecting Sold a Story to The Reading League’s Pre-K Curriculum Evaluation Guidelines
The examples Hanford shares offer a compelling illustration of why intentional language instruction matters. They also provide a useful starting point for exploring what evidence-aligned Pre-K instruction and experiences should include.
At The Reading League, our mission is to advance the awareness, understanding, and use of evidence-aligned reading instruction. That mission extends to the earliest foundations of literacy, well before children enter kindergarten.
The Reading League’s newly released Pre-K Curriculum Evaluation Guidelines (PCEGs) translate research into a practical framework for evaluating whether Pre-K instructional materials include the essential components of language and pre-literacy instruction.
The connection to Engelmann’s approach is specific and important. His work, as described in Sold a Story, illustrates the value of explicitly teaching language that children might otherwise be expected to acquire incidentally. The PCEGs identify intentional instruction, systematic learning opportunities, modeling, guided practice, and meaningful application as important considerations when evaluating Pre-K curricula.
The PCEGs take it one step further. Although there is research behind the Direct Instruction approach, this resource draws on a broader body of research to help educators and decision-makers evaluate the quality and comprehensiveness of instruction. They also address essential components that extend beyond the examples highlighted in the podcast.
Together, these resources offer complementary perspectives: Sold a Story brings instructional principles to life through reporting on Engelmann’s work, while the PCEGs provide a research-based framework for examining what those principles—and other essential components of early literacy—look like across a curriculum.
What should educators look for in Pre-K curricula?
- Intentional instruction that builds oral language.
The foundation for reading and writing is language. The two are inextricably linked and must be treated as such in all grades for all students. The PCEGs emphasize that oral language instruction should address vocabulary, syntax, discourse, verbal reasoning, background knowledge, and phonological sensitivity. These skills support the development of word recognition and comprehension.
Like the example in Sold a Story, the guidelines caution against relying solely on incidental learning. Children need intentional opportunities to learn language, supported by clear instruction and meaningful practice.
- Explicit modeling and guided practice, combined with play.
The PCEGs emphasize the importance of combining adult-guided and child-guided experiences. Teachers should clearly model skills and concepts, guide children’s practice, and scaffold learning toward independence.
This does not mean replacing play with formal lessons. Effective Pre-K curricula thoughtfully integrate intentional teaching with playful, interactive, developmentally appropriate experiences. Children need opportunities to explore and discover, as well as knowledgeable adults who guide learning and ensure that essential skills are taught.
- Language learning in meaningful contexts.
Teaching a word or concept in isolation is not enough. Children need opportunities to use language to communicate, explain, describe, compare, and reason.
The PCEGs highlight the importance of robust teacher-child and child-child conversations, interactive read-alouds, storytelling, guided discussion, and exposure to both narrative and knowledge-building texts. Vocabulary instruction should help children develop deep understandings of words and relationships, including concepts related to space, quantity, attributes, emotions, categories, comparisons, synonyms, antonyms, and multiple meanings.
Children need opportunities to explore examples and non-examples, explain their thinking, and use new vocabulary in authentic communication. Responsive feedback helps them refine their understanding and apply what they learn.
- A coherent approach to pre-literacy skills.
The PCEGs also address essential pre-literacy skills, including phoneme awareness, emergent spelling, and alphabet knowledge. They help educators examine whether these skills are taught through thoughtful sequences that provide sufficient opportunities for learning, practice, and review.
This broader framework is important because strong oral language is essential, but it is not the entirety of early literacy instruction. Educators must also consider the other foundational skills that prepare children for later reading and writing.
- Materials that reflect the evidence on how young children learn.
The PCEGs help educators and decision-makers identify potential red flags, such as overreliance on incidental learning, insufficient modeling and guided practice, language instruction disconnected from meaningful communication, or an incoherent progression of skills.
These considerations matter. A 2024 review by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found that preschool curricula often fall short in advancing early literacy learning and supporting emergent bilingual learners. We cannot assume that a curriculum is effective simply because it contains read-alouds, centers, play-based activities, or other experiences associated with early childhood education. We must examine what children are being taught, how instruction is delivered, and whether the materials reflect the evidence on how children learn.
Explore the resources. Put the evidence into practice.
For educators and leaders who want to deepen their understanding of evidence-aligned Pre-K instruction, The Reading League offers two particularly valuable resources.
The first is The Reading League Compass: Pre-K Educators and Leaders. This dedicated page brings together research, practical tools, and guidance on building oral language and early literacy foundations in playful, developmentally appropriate Pre-K classrooms. It includes resources on oral language, language assessment, multilingual learners, play-based learning, screen use, and other considerations that shape early literacy development.
The second is the Pre-K Curriculum Evaluation Guidelines. Educators, school leaders, curriculum decision-makers, and educator preparation faculty can download the PCEGs and use them to review instructional materials, support curriculum adoption decisions, guide classroom walk-throughs, and strengthen professional learning. The guidelines help users move beyond asking whether a curriculum includes literacy activities to examining whether it provides the essential components of evidence-aligned language and pre-literacy instruction.
I encourage Pre-K educators and leaders to both listen to Season 2 of Sold a Story and download and use the PCEGs. Listen for the instructional principles Hanford brings to light, then use the guidelines to explore the broader research base and examine how those principles translate into curriculum and classroom practice.
At The Reading League, we believe that evidence-aligned instruction matters from the very beginning of a child’s literacy journey. Pre-K is not too early to be intentional about language. It is precisely the time when building strong foundations can make a difference.
Every child deserves instruction that recognizes their potential and gives them the opportunity to learn. Our responsibility is to ensure that the teaching lives up to that promise.
Because nobody rises to low expectations—and every child deserves teaching that gives their brilliance a chance to shine.
