One researcher says giving students easy texts holds back achievementView in browser [link removed]

**Weekly Update**

**A newsletter from The Hechinger Report**

**In this week's edition:** A reading expert argues against one of the most common teaching practices in American classrooms: matching students with “just-right” books [link removed]. A large wave of first-generation students in Texas are applying to college [link removed]. Plus, unionized teachers are pushing their school districts to take action on the climate crisis [link removed].

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Credit: AP Photo/Alex Slitz

**Why one reading expert says ‘just-right’ books are all wrong**

Timothy Shanahan, a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has spent his career evaluating education research and helping teachers figure out what works best in the classroom. A leader of the National Reading Panel, whose 2000 report helped shape what’s now known as the “science of reading,” Shanahan has long influenced literacy instruction in the United States. He also served on the National Institute for Literacy’s advisory board in both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations.

Shanahan is a scholar whom I regularly consult when I come across a reading study, and so I was eager to interview him about

****his new book, “Leveled Reading, Leveled Lives [link removed].” (Harvard Education Press, September 2025). In it, Shanahan takes aim at one of the most common teaching practices in American classrooms: matching students with “just-right” books. 

He argues that the approach — where students read different texts depending on their assessed reading level — is holding many children back. Teachers spend too much time testing students and assigning leveled books, he says, instead of helping all students learn how to understand challenging texts.

“American children are being prevented from doing better in reading by a longstanding commitment to a pedagogical theory that insists students are best taught with books they can already read,” Shanahan writes in his book. “Reading is so often taught in small groups — not so teachers can guide efforts to negotiate difficult books, but to ensure the books are easy enough that not much guidance is needed.”

Comprehension, he says, doesn’t grow that way.

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**More first-generation students in Texas are applying for college**

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Adrian Torres’ obsession with race cars began when he was 11 years old. He got hooked watching a YouTube video of someone playing a Formula One game and quickly grew fascinated with the race cars themselves. In high school, he joined the robotics club.

“I’ve always wanted to learn how things work,” Torres said, and the robotics club taught him “that’s what mechanical engineering is.”

Going to college to pursue a degree in that field seemed like a good next step, but he had a lot to figure out. Neither his father, who is from Puerto Rico, nor his mother, who is from Guatemala, has a college degree. All they could do was encourage him.

With help from others, including mentors at the robotics club, Torres applied to college and is now a freshman at the University of Texas at Dallas. He’s part of a large wave of first-generation students applying to college in the state, one that has grown significantly over the last five years.  

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****Teachers unions leverage contracts to fight climate change****

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Plus, climate change’s impact on students’ math scores.

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A new report describes how educators can raise demands for climate action when they negotiate labor contracts with their districts. [link removed]

****Reading list****

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OPINION: Student-parents belong on college campuses. So do their children [link removed]

Institutions of higher education must support student-parents like me. They still have a long way to go

Tracking Trump: His actions on education [link removed]

The president is working to eliminate the Education Department and fighting ‘woke’ ideology in schools. A week-by-week look at what he’s done

OPINION: Young men are increasingly lonely, isolated and reading less [link removed]
The best solution is deceptively simple: Treat reading as the most important social experience children can have

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