08/29/2026
From the "Still as true today as it was 20 years ago" files, we're reading this excellent report from back in 2007: Teaching All Students to Read: Practices from Reading First Schools With Strong Intervention Outcomes. During the Reading First years, The Florida Center for Reading Research collected information about schools that were having greater-than-average outcomes for students with literacy difficulties. This document condensed their findings into 7 common traits observed in successful schools.
The whole brief 22-page report is worth the time for any implementation-focused leader or educator who is interested in promoting practices that effective schools use. Find the full text here:https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED498784.pdf
1. Strong Leadership: In every successful school, strong direction came from the principal, the reading coach, or a literacy team, and the one trait they all shared was knowledge of literacy development and instruction. These leaders knew their students by name, knew which children were at risk, knew what each reading program addressed, and could explain a clear vision for the school. That knowledge drove concrete decisions. One principal described his first step as identifying the children in need, then building his staffing and schedule around them. He set his intervention budget first, in the spring, and then found the funds to cover it, on the principle that budget should reflect student needs. Leaders also took an active role in data meetings, and protected reading time when building the master schedule. Teachers across these schools said their principal's door was always open and that the principal would not ask them to do anything he or she would not do.
2. Positive Belief and Teacher Dedication: Staff at successful schools believed all their students could learn to read, and they held that belief even though their students faced the same language barriers, poverty, and limited home support cited by less successful schools as reasons for failure. The difference was that successful schools did not use those factors as explanations for why students could not learn. They raised the bar rather than lowering it, and they backed high expectations with support, so that when a teacher needed more books or more paper, the leader found the money. The consistent example set by the leader was the key ingredient.
3. Data Utilization and Analysis: Successful schools held regular data meetings, usually every two weeks or monthly, with a clear structure and the right people present. A defining feature was that someone in the room, most often the principal, could make school-level decisions and act on them immediately, which cut out the delay of tracking down an administrator between meetings. These schools used forms and systems to track each child's programs, modifications tried, and additional test data such as mastery measures or reports from computer-based programs, alongside DIBELS scores. Less successful schools knew they were supposed to meet about the data but had no plan for making decisions, so teachers left still unsure of what to do next. One principal also stressed using spring data to plan for the following year, arguing that waiting until fall to plan interventions is too late, and that spring data should guide textbook purchases and budget priorities. Schools scheduled these meetings in two main ways: during teacher planning periods, or during the school day by bringing in substitutes who rotated through classrooms so each teacher could attend in turn.
4. Effective Scheduling: Principals consistently named scheduling as one of the most critical parts of an effective intervention program, because specific time has to be set aside or intervention does not happen reliably. They worked around four challenges: protecting an uninterrupted reading block of 90 minutes or more, identifying specific times for intensive intervention, arranging staff for the most efficient use of support personnel, and building in common planning time for grade-level teams. Two structures for intervention were most common:
- In the first, a 90-minute reading block is followed by a separate 30-to-45-minute period outside the block, with the intervention almost always delivered by support personnel rather than the classroom teacher.
- In the second, the block is extended to 105-120 minutes and the intervention is integrated into the reading block itself, delivered sometimes by the classroom teacher and sometimes by support staff.
This is where the "walk to read" approach comes in. In a walk-to-read model, students physically move during the reading block to a different classroom grouped by common instructional need, so a limited number of trained support staff can be concentrated where they are most needed. One school of 895 students staggered its reading blocks so two grade levels met at a time, and used its ESOL and ESE teachers as reading teachers, giving each grade two to four extra teachers during the block and dropping the reading-block group size to 15 or fewer. In other schools, the classroom teacher delivers tier 2 directly: at one 575-student school, the teacher extended a 90-minute block by 20 minutes, ran three reading groups, met each for 20 minutes while others worked at centers, and saw the most at-risk group a second time for a double dose. Neither approach is presented as better. Walk-to-read maximizes scarce specialists across more students, while the teacher-delivered double dose avoids transition times and allows the teachers who know their students best to deliver intervention.
5. Professional Development: Because it takes more skill to teach students with literacy difficulties than students who learn easily, professional development was treated as a foundation of a teacher's job, and it was differentiated to teachers' experience. High teacher turnover in these schools made it essential to create an ongoing plan for training new teachers. Successful schools used a mix of district staff, literacy team members, publishers, and coaches for ongoing professional development. Follow-up, job embedded training was often described as more valuable than the initial training because the real, implementation oriented issues only arise once a teacher is actually using instructional materials. Schools used several models: sending a coach to workshops to train colleagues on return, relying on publishers and the district for program-specific training, using the coach and literacy team to lead book studies and short workshops during grade-level meetings, and setting up funds teachers could apply for to attend outside conferences and then present what they learned. To protect coaches' time for modeling and data work, several schools used veteran teachers to help support new teachers during common planning meetings.
6. Scientifically Based Intervention Programs: Some schools used intervention programs tied to their core reading program, while others pulled materials from several sources, with tradeoffs for each approach. A single published program offers ready-made materials, built-in professional development, a set scope and sequence, and sometimes a research base, but the cost was higher, and one program cannot meet every child's needs. Drawing from multiple sources allows a closer match between materials and a specific student's needs, but it takes significant time, requires a teacher who understands the data at the student level, and risks teaching the same skill in conflicting ways without a set scope and sequence or research support. Schools that succeeded with the multi-source approach usually had an experienced literacy team, not just a coach, to help analyze data and build materials. Technology played a supporting role throughout, from single-component software such as Read Naturally to programs covering all five reading components, with reports from those programs helping to inform data meetings.
7. Parent Involvement: Principals noticed a clear difference for children who had support at home or after school, and they treated involving families as work that takes deliberate effort, especially where many parents spoke limited English. A recurring practice was making the first contact with a parent a positive one, before any call about a concern, so the relationship starts from a constructive footing. Schools used interpreters at meetings, sent notices home in multiple languages, held parent nights where families could ask about curriculum or learn activities to do at home, and sent parent liaisons to visit homes. Before- and after-school programs extended learning, and several schools solved the transportation problem by using grant or budget funds to run late buses home. One school built family reading events, materials in English and Spanish, and a signed home-school achievement contract into a coordinated effort to make parents feel like a genuine part of their child's education.
While it is a bit dated in some places, the core of the report is still rock-solid when it comes to intervention outcomes for K-3 students.
