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!
LRA 2023: Reading Research in the 21st Century
December 4, 2023
Download Literacy Research Association 2023 Conference presentations on Reading Research in the 21st Century.
TextProject’s Decoding + Knowledge Program
July 27, 2023
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.
Giving Middle-School Readers a Boost with TopicReads
April 26, 2023
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.
The Science of Reading: Seeking Research-Based Answers to Critical Questions
November 30, 2022
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.
Knowledge Building for Beginning Readers
September 19, 2022
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.
Read-Alouds That Inspire
March 9, 2021
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?
Results May Vary: Do First-Grade Reading Curriculum and Instruction Need to Be Adapted?
January 25, 2021
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.
Feature Presentation: How Familiarity and Concreteness Can Help Beginning Readers Learn New Words
January 5, 2021
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.
What is the Best Way to Teach Vocabulary?
November 18, 2020
With over 600,000 words in written English, which ones should English Language Arts teachers teach, and how?
Teaching Networks of Words
August 13, 2020
Students have trouble learning and retaining lists of unconnected words. Teaching words in networks helps students form connections among the words, bolstering their understanding.