New data shows early‑grade reading remains below pre‑pandemic levels, with first‑ and second‑graders lagging as math rises.

Although most of them were still in diapers when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, today’s early elementary students didn’t make it through the global catastrophe unscathed. A new analysis from NWEA, an ...

In early 2026, a small group of first-grade students at Lucy Wortham James Elementary School in St. James, Missouri, sat together sounding out words. Kim Williams, the school’s principal, watched as ...

Key points All first graders should show development in two critical phases, Phases 3 and Phase 4, leading to automatic word reading and spelling. In Phases 3 and 4 writing samples, you see evidence ...

In this second of a two-part post, I collaborate with co-author Dr. Molly Ness of Fordham University to show how analysis of writing in children as young as kindergarten shows evidence of foundational ...