Harvard Lab Expands To Help More Children Learn To Read

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Sep 19, 2024, 08:00 ET

Combined federal and philanthropic support to double program reach and accelerate progress in addressing early literacy.

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Sept. 19, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) today announced support of Harvard University's READS Lab Model of Reading Engagement (MORE) program, increasing the number of students they are reaching with new federal and philanthropic support. The combined CZI support and Education Innovation and Research (EIR) grant will help MORE expand its programs and scale its impact to help kids learn to read.

Students reading at the school library. Photograph via iStock photo.

"We are thrilled to continue supporting students through this research-based work by the READS Lab and to see their effort recognized by the U.S. Department of Education," said CZI's Head of Education, Sandra Liu Huang. "CZI remains committed to enabling impactful products that help teachers bring learning science into classrooms and unlock the full potential of every student, no matter who they are or where they live."

Today, more than half of children in the U.S. are not proficient readers by the end of third grade, a key milestone for literacy. Support from CZI has helped the MORE program build, evaluate, and scale the program before being selected for the highly selective federal Education Innovation and Research (EIR) grant. As a result of the combined funds, MORE will build on its foundational work in grades 1 to 3 and expand to reach 4th-grade students for the first time and doubling its reach to 20,000 students. Other federal EIR grant recipients this year include Chan Zuckerberg Initiative partner, Village of Wisdom, an organization working to enhance student academic outcomes by harnessing the power of parent-teacher partnerships.

Since its inception, Harvard's MORE program has demonstrated long-term, positive impacts on improving early reading comprehension. In North Carolina, students who participated in MORE's elementary grade science and social studies curriculum for three years demonstrated higher achievement across subjects, including reading and math, and the gains persisted after students no longer received MORE lessons.

"MORE is a timely solution to the grand challenge of helping all learners read complex text throughout their education. It's a low-cost, high-impact intervention that causes lasting improvements," says Dr. James Kim, principal investigator and professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

MORE is part of Reach Every Reader, an initiative aimed at addressing early literacy through five areas of research: pre-literacy skills and early childhood development, screening and diagnostic assessments of literacy development, early intervention and support for developing readers, literacy tools and practices for educators, and scalability and collaboration with other researchers and organizations. Supported by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Reach Every Reader is a collaboration between neuroscience and education research teams from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Florida State University that is available in 47 states and has impacted more than 58,000 children, 28,000 educators, and 7,000 parents/caregivers.

"With the new grant, starting this summer, we began offering our first district Summer Leadership Institute focusing on districts' instructional ecosystem," said Ethan Scherer, the Director of Harvard's READS Lab. "Using our tools, the institute works with system teams to improve the usage and coherence of their instructional resources as well as provides concrete next steps to help them build a healthier literacy ecosystem." The READS Lab plans to offer this program every summer for interested school districts.

About the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative was founded in 2015 to help solve some of society's toughest challenges — from eradicating disease and improving education, to addressing the needs of our communities. Through collaboration, providing resources and building technology, our mission is to help build a more inclusive, just and healthy future for everyone. For more information, please visit chanzuckerberg.com.

About the READS Lab at Harvard University

The READS (Research Enhances Adaptations Designed for Scale in Literacy) Lab does relevant, rigorous, and replicable research to help educators build and maintain healthy literacy ecosystems to support transfer at scale and improve student outcomes. Its classroom tools support students' ability to transfer knowledge from taught to untaught subjects, the professional learning pathways support teachers' ability to transfer instructional practices across the school day and its partnership model supports transfer of equitable scaling strategies to other district goals. READS Lab has a long-term partnership with the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard rooted in a shared mission to transform education through the power of quality research and evidence. Learn more at https://www.readslab.org.

SOURCE Chan Zuckerberg Initiative