Insights Into Research-Informed Literacy Instruction
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I'm Catlin Goodrow, a reading teacher and coach. I've been lucky enough to visit hundreds of classrooms. From a middle school next to a cotton field in North Carolina, to a temporary building in Houston, to a Chicago pre-K classroom ... I've seen all kinds of instruction. Through it all, there's one constant: American kids are too often struggling to learn to read proficiently.
But we know better than ever how kids learn to read and write. By aligning our practices to research, we can support more students in becoming literate. 
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Core Principles
All of my work is grounded in five core principles, based in evidence AND in my experience in classrooms.
Principle 1: Students should receive explicit and systematic instruction in decoding, vocabulary, fluency, concept knowledge, and comprehension strategy use.
Principle 3: All students, regardless of reading ability, deserve and benefit from teacher-supported access to on-grade-level texts.
Principle 4: Effective teachers are responsive to students’ needs, strengths, interests, and cultures.
Principle 5: Research-informed practice changes as new research contributes to the field of teaching.
Principle 1: Students should receive explicit and systematic instruction in decoding, vocabulary, fluency, concept knowledge, and comprehension strategy use.
- Explicit instruction involves clear explanations and step-by-step teaching that gradually leads students from introduction and modeling of material, through practice, to independence.
- Systematic instruction is carefully sequenced, with new concepts and skills building on each other over time.
Principle 3: All students, regardless of reading ability, deserve and benefit from teacher-supported access to on-grade-level texts.
Principle 4: Effective teachers are responsive to students’ needs, strengths, interests, and cultures.
Principle 5: Research-informed practice changes as new research contributes to the field of teaching.
Instructional Insights
If, as a teacher, you've ever been told: "this is a best practice," and wondered: who says? ... then I hope this is the place for you.
On my blog page -- Instructional Insights -- my goal is to provide you with instructional information that is:
1. actionable
2. linked to research
3. workable in the average classroom
After 11 years of coaching, I returned to the classroom to pressure test many of the ideas and theories I'd developed in those hundreds of classrooms. Now, I'm sharing them with you.
On my blog page -- Instructional Insights -- my goal is to provide you with instructional information that is:
1. actionable
2. linked to research
3. workable in the average classroom
After 11 years of coaching, I returned to the classroom to pressure test many of the ideas and theories I'd developed in those hundreds of classrooms. Now, I'm sharing them with you.