Childhood

The road to becoming a reader begins early in a child's life and continues for many years. The skills a child develops from kindergarten through third grade are especially important. By the end of third grade, a child must read with ease and understanding to take advantage of the learning opportunities in fourth grade and beyond.

While there are no shortcuts to improving children's reading achievement, there is now an extensive knowledge base that shows us the skills children must learn in order to read well. These skills provide the basis for sound curriculum decisions and instructional approaches that can help improve all children's reading abilities.

The Institute is charged by the No Child Left Behind Act to disseminate findings from scientifically based reading research to improve the acquisition of reading skills by children, youth, and adults. To carry out this responsibility, the Institute is engaged in the following activities:

• Running the Commission on Reading Research
• Creating publications on K-3 children's reading for educators, administrators, and families
• Adding content on reading to WETA's Colorin Colorado website, www.colorincolorado.org, a bilingual website for families
• Developing criteria and a strategy for identifying schools with strong student reading outcomes in grades K-3 that are using a program of reading instruction based on findings from scientific research. Reports describing schools will be developed.