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Editor’s Note: The fifth brief of an eight-part series from the North Carolina Early Childhood Foundation is embedded below on classroom experiences while aligning reading instruction with the “science of reading.”
School master schedules, which determine the blocking of time during the school day, are tricky and complicated systems to coordinate. Researchers and educators are increasingly learning that these master schedules substantially impact learning, because they determines the time spent on instruction and whether key components of instruction are experienced in the optimal order.
As noted in Brief 1, NC’s Excellent Public Schools Act, signed into law in April 2021, requires that all pre-K to fifth-grade teachers complete Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS) training. After completion, many aspects of implementation are left to the discretion of school districts and schools. Without additional guidance on how to implement what is learned, there are many decisions that schools can make that can undermine the benefits of strengthening teachers’ knowledge of the practices that can align their instruction with the Science of Reading (SoR).
Whether beginning readers receive reading and writing instruction in connected blocks of time is one of those aspects that can be affected by a school’s master schedule, and when blocked correctly, can enhance the effectiveness of strong instructional practices.
The full brief is embedded below.
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