Frankly Freddy Blog
TextProject president and CEO Elfrieda H. (Freddy) Hiebert blogs about important issues in reading research and practice.Frankly Freddy entries (published from 2005 to 2014) have been sorted into five topics of literacy learning and instruction. Click here to download the ebook!
Not All Rare Words Are Sesquipedalian!
January 15, 2020
A small part of the English vocabulary accounts for the majority of the words in the texts students read across the grades – but some of the words may surprise you.
What Does It Mean To Be A Digitally Literate Scholar?
November 27, 2018
Some thoughts for Literacy Research Association session: Opening up the ivory tower: Examining the elements of open, digitally engaged scholarship (November 28, 2018, Indian Wells, CA)
Building Background Knowledge and Reading Proficiency: One Article at a Time
August 14, 2018
Article-A-Day” is an open-access program from Readworks.org. Daily, students read an article from focused topics that ensure their development of background knowledge. Evidence shows that daily reading of an article supports students’ comprehension and engagement.
A New Kind of Leveled Text: Meeting the Needs of Challenged Readers
July 24, 2018
Short sentences and less text don’t add up to proficient reading. But that’s exactly what the current wave of leveled texts offers.
What Should Goals Be For Increasing Students’ Oral Reading Rates?
May 26, 2018
The question of how much growth to set as goals for oral reading fluency depends on the grade level and where students are in relation to grade-level patterns. But before I give my recommendations, I would like to review several critical points about oRead More »What Should Goals Be For Increasing Students’ Oral Reading Rates?
The Stories of Words: TextProject’s Newest Texts and Vocabulary Product
January 9, 2017
The texts in the Stories of Words series provide a great opportunity for students to expand their vocabularies, increase their background knowledge, and develop facility with the core vocabulary of written English.
Interpreting Intervention Outcomes: Lexile-Based Assessments and Norm-Referenced Assessments
April 8, 2016
Are the results from Lexile-based assessments and Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation (GRADE) comparable? For educators, how do the results from Lexile-based and norm-referenced assessments relate to the results of summative, end-of-the-year, state-mandated assessments?heere
Multi-Level Text Sets: Leveling the Playing Field or Sidelining Struggling Readers?
February 18, 2016
It’s a compelling idea—a set of texts on the same topic but with different text complexity levels. With a range of texts on the same topic—easy, moderate, and hard—all students should be able to engage in the same follow-up discussion after reading. NoRead More »Multi-Level Text Sets: Leveling the Playing Field or Sidelining Struggling Readers?
Join the “Read-an-Article-a-Day” Initiative
January 21, 2016
What is the “Read-an-Article-a-Day” Initiative and why is it important?
The Reach of Literacy Research
November 5, 2015
The age old debate: Quality versus quantity in the field of reading research