Guest Blog: Mary Willingham, Reading and Learning Specialist, on the AceReader Program

[Editor’s note: This is the first in an occasional series of guest blogs from a variety of AceReader users.] After college, where I earned a BS in Psychology, I worked in corporate HR for 15 years. Shortly before I turned 40, though, I decided that I wanted to teach, and I returned to school to … Continue reading “Guest Blog: Mary Willingham, Reading and Learning Specialist, on the AceReader Program”


Literacy Begins Early

A new report from Alberta, Canada indicates that fewer students are entering kindergarten each year with the necessary literacy skills to begin reading. As a result, according to Christie Watson, lead teacher of the Comprehensive Literacy program, only 78% of kindergarteners in the 2015-2016 school year were prepared enough to move on to Grade 1 … Continue reading “Literacy Begins Early”


Teaching Your Child to Love Reading

Reading is an essential part of life, and better readers make better learners, no matter what they’re trying to learn. According to the American Library Association, “Individuals read to live life to its fullest, to earn a living, to understand what is going on in the world, and to benefit from the accumulated knowledge of … Continue reading “Teaching Your Child to Love Reading”


Targeting the Young to Promote Adult Literacy

As part of the Development Lexicon Project study, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin are currently studying how words are read by people ranging from first-graders to seventy-year-olds. The researchers are focusing on three different characteristics of a word: its length, its frequency of use within the language, and its … Continue reading “Targeting the Young to Promote Adult Literacy”


Common Core and Vocabulary Instruction

What is the best way to teach vocabulary to young students? The creators of the United States’ Common Core curriculum indicate that how vocabulary is introduced is the key to students’ success and that using the real world as context for that introduction can be highly beneficial. Nell K. Duke, a professor of literacy, language, … Continue reading “Common Core and Vocabulary Instruction”