Literacy Now

Imagine a preschool-aged child listening closely during a read-aloud of The Bad Seed by Jory John, living vicariously through the choices of the characters. When the story ends, the authentic conversation begins: Was the seed really bad? Can people change? In that exchange, literacy is not about recalling details; rather, it is about constructing meaning to use language to explore ideas and begin to understand the world.

Now imagine an adult sitting at a café table, laptop open, scrolling through a news article. Eyebrows raise as they pause to check a source. Fingers hover over the keyboard while they mentally weigh the author's intent. They highlight a paragraph, reread a sentence, and ask themselves: Is this reliable? What does this really mean? How should I respond? This work is remarkably similar to the preschooler since both are constructing meaning, questioning, and making decisions.

Between these two moments lies the full arc of literacy development. A beginning reader learns that words form messages. An adolescent navigating digital and AI generated texts learns that messages are influenced by perspective and author's purpose. Across every stage, reading is not merely skill acquisition, but rather reading is meaning-making, communication, and decision-making. In a world where artificial intelligence can generate text instantly, engaging with readers matters more than ever. 

Why meaning matters more than ever

In a world where AI can generate endless text at the click of a button, the real danger isn't that students will use it. The danger is that they might stop thinking about what they read. Traditional assessment often fails to capture what truly matters in reading: Thinking critically with the text.

AI can generate language, but it cannot determine relevance, truth, or ethical use. Those responsibilities remain with the reader. This is why literacy instruction must prioritize reading messages rather than simply reading all the words, a position by Nell Duke's work on purposeful, authentic reading. Empowering students to read with intention and critically engaging with concepts is essential.

Conversations as the fuel to comprehension

Meaning-making is fueled by conversations where teachers ask students before, during, and after reading questions to articulate what a text is saying and why it matters. Here, reading is an act of thinking rather than completing a task. 

The language teachers use shapes how students see themselves as readers. When classrooms consistently invite interpretation, reflection, and discussion, students develop agency and voice. These discussion-rich practices also prepare students for ethical AI use. Students who regularly justify interpretations and question texts are better equipped to evaluate AI generated content thoughtfully.

Critical thinking is a literacy skill

Media literacy and AI literacy are not separate from reading comprehension; rather, they are extensions of it. Evaluating bias, intent, and credibility requires readers to actively monitor understanding and revise interpretations. 

Kelly B. Cartwright's research highlights that skilled reading depends on coordinating multiple cognitive processes, including attention and self-monitoring. As digital and AI generated texts grow and become more widespread, the stakes for literacy instruction rise; and therefore, students must engage in authentic reading, rich discussion, and intentional response rather than merely practicing skills stripped of meaningful context.

Starting early has lasting impact

This work does not begin in upper elementary, middle, and high school. In the preschool classroom, we can see teachers facilitating discussions on character choices and lessons learned. Here they are engaging in early ethical reasoning while also developing rich oral language and expressive vocabulary. Research shows that preschool oral language skills, including vocabulary and grammar, strongly predict later reading comprehension. Preschoolers finding and sharing messages in a text fosters critical thinking and opens a world of possibilities.
 
As beginning readers explain what a text is mostly about, they strengthen comprehension and oral language simultaneously. These early experiences accumulate. By the time students encounter AI tools, they bring years of practice in listening, interpreting, questioning, and communicating. Without the foundation, AI becomes a shortcut. With it, AI becomes a tool that is used thoughtfully and critically to live responsibly in society.

Classroom practices that support meaning and language

Early Childhood	Upper Elementary and Middle School
Invite children to listen for a message during read-alouds.	Engage students in discussions that require justification and multiple perspectives.
Use open-ended questions to promote talk and vocabulary growth.	Connect texts to real-world decisions.
Primary Grades	High School and Post-High School
Ask what a text is mostly about—not just what happened.	Treat AI-generated text as material for analysis, not answers.
Provide sentence frames to support oral explanations.	Emphasize discussion and reflection as evidence of thinking.

Across grades, these practices reinforce a shared message: Reading is an active, communicative act of meaning-making.

Fueling critical thinking in an AI world

Avoiding technology won’t save literacy. True preparation comes from helping students make meaning, express ideas, and think critically. These skills travel across every text and every tool—including AI. Teachers are preparing students to navigate the world thoughtfully and with responsibility in preschool. This happens when teachers facilitate learning for students to read for messages, communicate ideas, and apply understanding.

In The Bad Seed, children are invited to wrestle with a powerful idea: People are not defined solely by past behavior, and choices matter. That early conversations mirror the work readers must do throughout their lives. Whether encountering a picture book, a news article, or an AI generated text, readers must ask: What is this saying? Why does it matter? And what will I do with this message? 

In a world where text can be produced instantly, the most important literacy outcome remains unchanged. What matters most is how deeply readers make meaning, and how wisely they choose to act on it. 

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Summer library activities help you prevent learning loss while encouraging children and families to maintain strong reading habits during school breaks. Your library can be an accessible community learning hub where readers explore books and collaborative experiences that keep literacy engagement active throughout the summer months.

Creating interactive seasonal programs strengthens reading confidence and encourages lifelong reading behaviors across different age groups. Summer literacy programs also provide your community with consistent opportunities to build social connections through shared literacy experiences. The most effective ones encourage active participation while making reading feel collaborative and accessible. These activities combine education, social interaction, and hands-on learning experiences that keep readers connected throughout the break.

1. Intergenerational book clubs and oral storytelling events

Intergenerational book clubs and storytelling events can be among the most meaningful summer library activities for strengthening community literary engagement. Your library can create book clubs that pair children, teens, parents, and older adults. You can host storytelling nights where residents share cultural stories and community experiences.

Learning from lived experience while hearing ideas and solutions from young people can also become a collaborative process for addressing broader social and community challenges. Oral storytelling further supports listening comprehension and encourages stronger emotional connections through shared narratives and discussions.

2. Community reading challenge with incentives

One of the most effective summer library activities involves organizing age-based or family-based reading challenges with weekly milestones that keep participants engaged throughout the season. Your library can increase excitement by offering badges or certificates that reward consistent participation and reading progress. 

Children who participate in summer library reading programs often surpass their peers in reading proficiency because regular reading strengthens comprehension and academic retention. You can implement structured reading routines to reinforce reading stamina while helping participants build long-term literacy habits. Shared goals and group participation further increase motivation by creating a stronger sense of community involvement.

3. Outdoor story walks and park reading trails

Your library can create outdoor story walks by placing laminated book pages or QR-linked story stations throughout parks or community walking paths to encourage interactive reading experiences outside traditional spaces. You can add discussion prompts and literacy games along the route to keep participants engaged and turn reading into a more social, hands-on activity.

Movement-based literacy programs can improve participation among reluctant readers and younger children. Active experiences feel less intimidating and more enjoyable than seated instruction alone. When you combine physical activity with reading, participants form stronger memory associations, making the learning experience more immersive and memorable.

4. Creative writing and zine-making workshops

Your library can host creative workshops focused on poetry, comics, or self-published zines to make literacy feel more personal and interactive during the summer. You can invite local authors, educators, or community artists to lead sessions and give participants direct exposure to different forms of storytelling and creative expression.

These workshops help increase confidence because participants actively create and share their own ideas rather than only consuming written content. Hands-on writing activities can also encourage reluctant readers to engage with language differently by connecting literacy with art, personal reflection, and collaborative creativity.

5. Literacy-based STEM and research activities

You can create cross-disciplinary summer library activities that combine books with science- or history-themed projects, encouraging participants to explore literacy across multiple subject areas. Your library might organize mystery-solving scavenger hunts, coding challenges, or research mini-projects that make reading feel more interactive and relevant to real-world learning.

These programs help improve critical thinking and information-evaluation skills by encouraging participants to analyze sources and apply their knowledge in creative ways. Integrating literacy across disciplines also creates a much richer learning experience as students use literacy for different purposes in various subject areas.

The importance of summer literacy engagement

Consistent reading routines help strengthen vocabulary growth and support long-term academic retention during summer breaks. Since the journey to skilled reading typically spans around 10 years, students benefit from high-quality classroom instruction and sustained independent reading practice that reinforces literacy development over time.

Organizing community-centered literacy activities through your libraries makes books and educational support more accessible to families from different backgrounds. These shared reading experiences also encourage social-emotional development and help participants feel a stronger sense of belonging to the community.

Making the library a summer learning hub

Summer library activities help you support academic growth while strengthening community connection through shared learning experiences and consistent literacy engagement outside the school year. Your library can help sustain reading habits beyond traditional classrooms, which makes it important for you to design interactive programs that keep reading social and accessible throughout the entire year.

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When Saundra (pseudonym) invited me into her literacy classroom to work together, she expressed her desire to prioritize student voice and incorporate their stories into her literacy instruction. Saundra and I discussed a small-scale project, as part of a large ongoing research project, in which I would visit her and spend a week in her classroom, examining how her students told stories. Before this project, I had known Saundra for many years and we were reconnected through a professional development experience.  

For this project, I drew upon a series of interviews with Saundra and a week of observation in Saundra’s classroom. As the week went on, Saundra and I realized there was a disconnect between how deeply she wanted to encourage her students to tell their stories and use their voices. Therefore, the research project shifted into discussing possibilities for empowering more student voice in such a restrictive environment.

Saundra teaches first grade in an urban public school district. Neoliberal, capitalistic, and individualistic pressures often lead schools like Saundra’s to prioritize state standards, high-stakes testing, and restrictive curricula, limiting teacher and student agency. These pressures and their implicit emphasis on power and control within the education system are communicated to teachers and contradict the value of listening to children's voices and students’ stories. Saundra’s experience reflects the realities that many teachers across the United States face when it comes to the delicate balance between the pressures of what they feel they must do and what they know is best practice for their students.

In Saundra’s classroom—similar to many public schools around the U.S.—there are many structures teachers have to consider in their pedagogical decisions. For Saundra, the structure and systems of schooling created hurdles along the path to the expansive, student-centered ways in which Saundra desired to teach literacy. In what follows, I present five hurdles Saundra encountered:

1. The Classroom

In Saundra’s classroom, educational posters covering all four walls emphasized the importance of literacy as specific skills to be taught and measured in systematic ways, focusing on discrete phonemic and phonological awareness as well as district-required data displays for a standardized Readiness Evaluation. The displays visually reinforced the importance of measurable skills in literacy education.

2. Time Constraints

Saundra’s day was neatly organized, but left her little time to infuse the topics or activities that she was passionate about into her instruction. Saundra felt forced to “cram it all in” when she was teaching rather than giving students the time to explore (despite her desire to make the time). Saundra had to balance the knowledge that students could learn literacy skills in multiple ways with the real pressures of time.

3. Curricular Structures

The curriculum for literacy at Gold Elementary (pseudonym) focused heavily on phonological and morphological skill development for students and left no room for creative expression or exploration in non-scripted, non-standardized ways. Due to the tightly bound and mandated literacy curriculum, Saundra was limited from spending curricular time and space on including students’ voices and experiences into classroom literacy practices. 

4. Testing Pressures

Despite her desire to foster expansive, student-centered literacy, Saundra found herself constrained by the requirements of preparing her students for benchmark evaluations. The pressure of having students perform well on the Readiness Evaluation (pseudonym) is openly communicated to teachers, including Saundra, from the school administration. Saundra described how “everything that I do, I try to use as a resource that is going to help my students do better on their diagnostic.” Saundra experienced tension between teaching the memorization of skills for the test or teaching literacy in ways that created space for her students’ voices.

5. Professional Hierarchy

No matter how much Saundra desired to change aspects of literacy to include more of her students’ stories and less time on scripted-lessons, Saundra had to ensure that she was meeting the expectations of her supervisors, who held control over her employment contract and directed her in what must be done and should not be done in her classroom academic plans. Balancing the dynamic of respecting her supervisors and their directives for instruction was at tension with Saundra’s desire to push the boundaries of administrative directives towards more student voice.

Clearing the Hurdles

For educators who value students’ voices and stories in the classroom, small steps can become bigger movements in your school over time and lead to educators clearing these five hurdles in their path.

• Assess the daily schedule to find windows for students’ voices to be central. For example, teachers can assess their morning meeting and closing circle routines to incorporate more time for student sharing or ensure that their literacy block includes student sharing time at the end, before moving onto the next subject of the day.
• Consider when independent student assignments from a guided curriculum could be supplemented to include group or partner work for students.
• Dedicate a portion of reading instructional time for students to talk to their peers about books through sharing circles or book club groups.
• Ensure that writing instructional blocks include free writing time to encourage student voices in print.
• Engage in professional book studies with colleagues to collaboratively learn about expansive, student-centered approaches to literacy instruction.

Saundra’s experience provides insights into the relationship between the public schooling system, teacher pedagogical beliefs, and the negotiation of challenges that arise for educators like Saundra. When facing hurdles, teachers can make space for students’ voices in small ways and can collaborate with their colleagues to find ways to do so.

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From Book Selection to Discussion: How to Lead Effective Read-Alouds

10 Strategies for Families to Strengthen Read-Alouds at Home

World Read-Aloud Day brings classrooms, families, libraries, and communities together through the power of shared stories. A single voice and a meaningful book can shape students’ identities, nurture empathy, and ignite a passion for literacy that lasts a lifetime. Reading aloud does much more than build decoding, fluency, or oral language and listening skills—it creates a communal learning space where every reader belongs.

In addition, reading aloud can:

• Encourage a lifelong commitment to reading as a joyful habit
• Help shape positive reading attitudes, particularly for developing readers
• Expose students to a wide range of literature, genres, and perspectives
• Promote vocabulary and language development through authentic oral models
• Widen students’ views of themselves, others, and the broader community
• Foster communal experience—a sense of belonging around a story

How to get started

The right book can transform a read-aloud moment. During your search, consider the following:

• Use trusted sources such as The Reading Teacher, Language Arts, The Horn Book, and the School Library Journal.
• Check reliable websites and local bookstores for curated recommendations and thematic lists.
• Prioritize diverse book options from platforms like We Need Diverse Books and publishers such as Lee & Low Books, Kokila (Penguin Books), and Groundwood Books (House of Anansi Press).
• Preview the book at least once before reading it aloud, shelving it in your classroom library, or recommending it to colleagues. A pre-read helps you note discussion points, sensitive areas, pacing, and places to pause for questions or reactions.

Videos featuring read-alouds

Below are curated examples of videos that feature authors or organizations reading books aloud with permission or through official partnerships.

Author Read-Aloud Example: High-quality read-aloud videos with permission from the author (the author reads aloud their book).

WeAreTeachers Storytime Series: A storytime video series featuring children’s book authors.

Reading Is Fundamental Read-Aloud Collection: Features authors and professional readers sharing beloved titles.

Storyline Online: Features actors reading popular children's books. The app also provides another platform for digital read-alouds.

TeachingBooks Collection: Multimedia author interviews, readings, and book guides.

E Train Talks Books: A nonprofit created by a student, dedicated to celebrating stories and changing the world for the better one book at a time.

Authors Everywhere: Author-created videos for literacy learning.

Reading Rainbow: A space to discover digital read-alouds and related content.

Publisher Permissions: Many publishers provide read-aloud guidelines for educators and promote read alouds by their authors on YouTube and other digital platforms.

More read-aloud resources

World Read-Aloud Day invites every educator, caregiver, child, and community member to share the power of story. Whether you choose a classic, a contemporary release, or a beloved childhood favorite, the act of reading aloud strengthens literacy, deepens empathy, and unites us through shared experience.

All throughout February, ILA is sharing resources to support read-alouds in classrooms or shared with families to support read-aloud practices at home. Be sure to review the full list!

World Read Aloud Day is the perfect time to think about how to expand our school celebrations of highly effective, engaging read-alouds to reach our students at home. Families want the best for their children and look to teachers for guidance on how they can support their child's literacy. Read-alouds, paired with effective interactive strategies, are an easy and effective way to support early comprehension, vocabulary, and a love of reading at home. This article presents ten research-based read-aloud strategies and how to share them with families.

10 Read-Aloud Strategies

Strategy	What It Builds	Sample Prompt	What to Look For
1. Identify rhyming words	Phonological awareness (hearing sounds in words)	What two words sound the same at the end?	Rhyming words on most pages
2. Talk about word meanings	Vocabulary (understanding word meanings)	That word means...	Some words for which children do not yet know the meanings
3. Make connections	Comprehension (story understanding)	Did anything like this ever happen to you? Does this remind you of anything?	Events or characters are like children's life experiences
4. Make and check predictions	Comprehension monitoring (checking understanding while reading)	Predict: What do you think will happen? Check: Were you right?	You can usually use clues to guess what's going to happen next on each page, or every few pages
5. Think critically	Reasoning	What do you think...? Why do you think that?	Books that have moral dilemmas or multiple possible endings (i.e., what happens at the end isn't clear)
6. Make inferences	Inferential comprehension (understanding the story by "reading between the lines")	Text clues: What do you notice in the words or pictures that could help you? Background knowledge: What do you know about the world that could help? What can you infer based on these clues?	There are clues that help you figure out what happened in the book when the words and pictures don't tell you directly
7. Point and read	Concepts about print (how print works)	(Point to the text as you read each word.) Encourage your child to point to words as you read.	Some words stand out to help children notice them (e.g., different color or size)
8. Find a letter	Letter knowledge	Can you find the letter ___? Point to and name the letter.	Alphabet books have a letter, pictures, and words related to that letter on each page
9. Say a letter sound	Letter knowledge	What sound does it make? (Point to and make the letter sound.)	Alphabet books have a letter, pictures, and words related to that letter on each page
10. Identify words that start with the letter	Letter knowledge	Which word starts with ___?	Alphabet books have a letter, pictures, and words related to that letter on each page

Sharing Strategies with Families

You can support families’ implementation of these practices by sending just one strategy home to practice per week (except for the last three letter knowledge strategies that can be taught together). Providing incremental tips (rather than an all-at-once approach) about read-aloud practices helps families slowly make transformations in their practices without feeling overwhelmed. 

Research strongly supports showing rather than telling families about desired practices. So, a video clip of you doing each strategy will yield much better results than sending an email about each strategy. Additionally, sending home bookmarks with each strategy and a sample prompt to use can provide a physical reminder of the new practices to support their implementation. 

If possible, also send home appropriate books to practice the strategies. You might partner with a school librarian, public librarian, or curriculum supervisor to access sets of appropriate books for this purpose. If physical books are not possible to acquire, you could provide a link to an appropriate read-aloud video (e.g., YouTube) and prompt parents to pause-and-talk during the video to practice the strategy. Further, if books cannot be found in a child’s home language, video-based books that are in the home language or that can be translated via caption options might also provide a solution. 

Finally, find a way for families to share and celebrate. If you have a class social media account (e.g., Facebook), cloud service account (e.g., Google Drive), or parent platform (e.g., Class Dojo), ask parents to share photos of them reading the books with their children and a post about what prompts they used aligned with the strategy of the week. This will encourage participation in the strategies and provide a platform for families to learn from one another. 

Empowering Read-Alouds

World Read-Aloud Day is a reminder of the power of effective read-alouds. Sharing ten read-aloud strategies with families can empower their read-aloud conversations at home. You play a critical role in supporting your families’ read-aloud practices.

Learn more about ILA's World Read-Aloud Day resources.