Meeting Primary Literacy Needs Post-Pandemic: Maximizing the Instructional Power of Early Reading Texts

Abstract

There is no question that elementary teachers are feeling added burdens regarding early reading instruction since returning to the post-pandemic classroom. Much discussion is occurring about lags across all areas of language and literacy development. At present, teachers have few empirical resources upon which to draw. This article considers the 2022 nine-year-old reading results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress as well as voices from virtual primary teachers in relationship to instructional recommendations made prior to 2020. Now more than ever, it is imperative that early literacy include not only foundational skills development, but also direct instruction in comprehension, vocabulary, and the development of background knowledge. This article proposes a way to integrate early language arts instruction across the curriculum by harnessing the power of texts written for young readers. Differentiating reader needs is always a consideration. What lies within the text is considered far less often. Walter Kintsch’s (1998) construction-integration and situation models include the surface level, the reader base, and the textbase, providing a paradigm for considering how these three components can work together instructionally to help developing readers gain literacy proficiency. Young children need to practice foundational and comprehension skills in text at their decoding levels. This inquiry pairs expert genre analysis of possible informational text written at a low decoding level with three types of instruction research indicates must happen in the primary grades, illustrating instructional methodologies for a) abstract and concrete high frequency sight words, b) deep comprehension, and c) text structure.