TABLE OF CONTENTS
Written by: Jessica Pasik, Professional Learning Director
A new school year can bring a mix of emotions, and educators may feel both overwhelmed and excited upon returning to the classroom. At The Reading League, we know teachers and leaders are managing a myriad of priorities. Whether you are a brand-new teacher or a seasoned veteran, it can sometimes be difficult to know where to begin.
Here are five high-leverage practices to help you launch the year with confidence.
1. Explicitly Teach and Practice Routines
Structure is key for a successful school day, and consistent, predictable routines help students understand expectations and engage in meaningful learning. According to Cognitive Load Theory (Sweller, 1988), learning is jeopardized when working memory is overloaded. Routines help reduce cognitive load by making the predictable parts of the day automatic, freeing students’ cognitive resources for new learning.
Both instructional routines and logistical routines can mitigate cognitive load.
Instructional routines are the practices teachers and students engage in predictably during instruction. For example:
- Reviewing previously taught letter-sound correspondences at the beginning of a phonics lesson
- A structured partner reading protocol to build fluency at the close of a reading lesson
- Writing a daily “gist statement” in response to a read-aloud
Logistical routines are equally important. They minimize transition time between learning blocks, prevent off-task behavior, and clarify expectations. For example:
- Establishing practices for where, when, and how to access and store materials (a bell signals partner reading → students retrieve their materials, find their partner, and move to their designated location)
- Gestures that signal when and how students share their thinking (a teacher touches their temple to cue individual think time, then lowers an open palm to cue a choral response)
Learning a routine is no different from learning any other skill, which means routines must be explicitly taught. Model the routine, guide students through practice, and only then expect them to carry it out independently.
2. Do a Data “Deep Dive”
In the recent TRL webinar Measuring What Matters, Elisabeth Lamoureaux and Andrea Setmeyer describe data as a roadmap: it points in the direction of where to go next. Every school system is unique, so assessment systems and structures will vary. Even so, two types of data deserve your attention early in the year.
Universal screening data identifies students at risk for reading difficulties and helps determine who may need additional testing to plan appropriate interventions. Common examples are curriculum-based measures such as oral reading fluency (via DIBELS, aimswebPlus, and similar tools). Screening data also offers a view of the classroom or grade level as a whole. If a significant number of students are flagged, core instruction may need to be adjusted.
Diagnostic data pinpoints specific areas of need for students flagged by a universal screener. Examples include the Quick Phonics Screener and The Reading League’s Phonemic Awareness and Phonics Knowledge Diagnostic Assessment. Depending on the grade level you work with and your curricular resources, your core or intervention program may include built-in diagnostic tools, such as a placement test. Familiarize yourself with this data, even if you did not administer the assessment and will not be delivering the resulting intervention. Read TRL’s recent blog on coherence across tiers in MTSS for details.
3. Prioritize Opportunities to Respond
Practice is essential to learning any new skill, and in literacy, both the quality and the frequency of that practice matter. Some students readily volunteer to answer questions, but when educators over-rely on the same students who raise their hands, the rest of the class can quietly disengage and opt out of learning.
If you are familiar with Dr. Anita Archer, you may recognize two of her best-known “Archerisms”: “Everyone does everything” and “Learning is not a spectator sport.” Building in frequent opportunities for all students to respond increases engagement and gives educators more chances to check for understanding and apply corrective feedback (Archer & Hughes, 2011).
This does not mean every student should answer every question in the same way. Archer and Hughes offer useful guidance for eliciting responses:
- Choral responses work best when answers are short and identical.
- Partner responses work best when answers are longer and will vary.
- Individual responses are best used sparingly, after individual think time or partner talk.
Oral responses are the most common, but they are not the only option. Response cards (a card or piece of paper listing predetermined options, such as yes or no, true or false, agree or disagree, or A, B, C, and D) allow all students to indicate their answers at once. For more open-ended questions, small whiteboards allow students to write or show their thinking.
4. Leverage Your Language
While we want students doing the bulk of the heavy lifting during instruction, don’t underestimate the power of your own “teacher talk.”
Lesaux (2014) studied the connection between the classroom language environment and student achievement in reading, finding that intentionally attending to teacher talk (increasing the number of complex words a teacher uses) is associated with gains in student vocabulary and reading.
This research is significant because it identifies a low-cost, high-impact practice that yields powerful results. Educators can model speaking in complete sentences and make deliberate choices about which sophisticated words to work into the day. Best of all, it requires no additional instructional time. Some examples might include:
- “Come sit on the outside of the rug.” → “Please assemble on the perimeter of the carpet.”
- “I’m going to hand out your next task.” → “In a moment, I will distribute your next assignment.”
5. Integrate Reading and Writing Instruction
We often conceptualize reading and writing as separate, distinct entities, yet research shows that integrating reading and writing instruction yields better student outcomes. In their meta-analysis of more than 90 studies, Graham and Hebert (2011) highlight the reciprocal relationship between reading and writing. They describe how writing about what you read improves reading comprehension.
Writing instruction does not need to occupy its own separate block. Consider where you can weave writing into the reading students are already doing. Simple writing prompts can also accompany shared classroom experiences, such as a read-aloud, an assembly, or a field trip.
This can be as simple as asking students to write a one-sentence gist statement or a one-paragraph summary. If students are still acquiring basic transcription skills, they can answer these kinds of questions orally. Oral language is foundational to all subsequent reading and writing success.
More advanced examples include having students write a personal response after reading a narrative text, or responding in writing to a discussion question after reading an informational text.
For more support connecting writing tasks to reading materials, see The Writing Rope by Joan Sedita and Cultivating the Reader and Writer by Young-Suk Grace Kim.
Final Thoughts
We know educators and leaders work tirelessly all year to meet the needs of all their students. We hope these highly effective practices serve as a helpful starting point as you return to the classroom.
The Reading League sincerely thanks you for your commitment to this work and wishes you a wonderful start to the school year!
Sources
Archer, A. L., & Hughes, C. A. (2010). Explicit instruction: Effective and efficient teaching. Guilford Press.
Graham, S. & Hebert, M. (2011). Writing to read: A meta-analysis of the impact of writing and writing instruction on reading. Harvard Educational Review, 81(4), 710-744. 10.17763/haer.81.4.t2k0m13756113566
Sedita, J. (2023). The writing rope: A framework for explicit writing instruction in all subjects. Brookes Publishing.
Sweller, J. (1988). Cognitive load during problem solving: Effects on learning. Cognitive Science, 12(2), 257–285. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog1202_4
Kim, Y.-S. G. (2026). Cultivating the reader and writer: Teaching literacy as an integrated science. Guilford Press.
