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!

  • How Words and Literature Support Hope in Classrooms

    In this presentation, Elfrieda H. (Freddy) Hiebert builds on her research on vocabulary and the article “Fostering Hope with Children’s Literature” (The Reading Teacher, 2022), in describing how literature for children and adolescents can create a community of hope in classrooms.

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NEW! 11/17/23 Presentation Handout – Teaching Vocabulary for Comprehension & Engagement: Applying the Science of Reading


LRA 2023: Reading Research in the 21st Century

December 4, 2023

Elfrieda H. Hiebert

Download Literacy Research Association 2023 Conference presentations on Reading Research in the 21st Century.

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TextProject’s Decoding + Knowledge Program

July 27, 2023

Elfrieda (Freddy) H. Hiebert

Children need to see lots and lots of texts to become proficient beginning readers. To increase text exposure to engaging, curriculum-based texts, we are a new program at TextProject: TextProject’s (TP) Decoding + Knowledge Program. Our aim is to give teachers, tutors, caregivers, and others easy access to texts that they can use to support children’s automatic and meaningful beginning reading.

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Giving Middle-School Readers a Boost with TopicReads

April 26, 2023

Elfrieda (Freddy) H. Hiebert

Middle schoolers who are challenged in reading don’t need more decoding practice with single- syllable words. What they really need is to spend about 10 to 15 minutes reading texts where they can get fast in recognizing the meanings of the 2,500 most-frequent words and their family members. A new set of texts at TextProject.org—TopicReads-Middle School—provides precisely this opportunity. 

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The Science of Reading: Seeking Research-Based Answers to Critical Questions

November 30, 2022

Elfrieda (Freddy) H. Hiebert, TextProject

I wrote a series of five blogs in late 2020 on the relationship of research to reading acquisition and instruction. In the first blog, I promised a final blog that would raise questions that require the attention of researchers. I am finally following through on that promise. This blog presents questions about the curriculum, instruction, and texts of reading instruction (especially in the early stages) for which I have been looking for answers in the ensuing two-year gap.

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Knowledge Building for Beginning Readers

September 19, 2022

Elfrieda Hiebert

Young children are bursting with curiosity about the world around them. A flock of birds flying overhead, the sound of a train, the taste of a kiwi–almost anything can ignite young children’s curiosity. Through answers to their questions and experiences, young children amass a treasure trove of knowledge.

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Read-Alouds That Inspire

March 9, 2021

Elfrieda H. Hiebert

As students return to school, there’s been pressure from parents, administrators, and others to make up for what students may have missed during their absence from the classroom. Everyone is anxious that students get back on track. But what about the stress in children and adults from concerns about health, lost jobs, and recognition of social injustice?

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Results May Vary: Do First-Grade Reading Curriculum and Instruction Need to Be Adapted?

January 25, 2021

Elfrieda H. Hiebert & Alia Pugh

Beginning readers have different levels of proficiency, but many may follow a similar path as they learn new words and orthographic patterns. This may not be the case for those with the lowest levels of ability, so curriculum and instruction should take into account the needs of those who depend most on their in-school literacy experiences.

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Feature Presentation: How Familiarity and Concreteness Can Help Beginning Readers Learn New Words

January 5, 2021

Elfrieda H. Hiebert

Teachers can help beginning readers master more than half of the 2,500 most frequently occurring word families by focusing on words they have already acquired in oral language and words with high concreteness ratings.

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What is the Best Way to Teach Vocabulary?

November 18, 2020

Elfrieda H. Hiebert

With over 600,000 words in written English, which ones should English Language Arts teachers teach, and how?

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Teaching Networks of Words

August 13, 2020

Elfrieda H. Hiebert

Students have trouble learning and retaining lists of unconnected words. Teaching words in networks helps students form connections among the words, bolstering their understanding.

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