How We Teach
Reading.
A national snapshot of what educators teach, what they believe, how prepared they feel, what gets in the way, and what they need.
The NRIS is a national descriptive survey. Results describe the respondents and should not be interpreted as estimates from a nationally representative probability sample.
Maybe we don't disagree as much as it seems.
Across several big ideas in reading instruction, agreement among respondents was striking.
We value expertise. We're less sure we're building it.
Teacher expertise matters as much as curriculum quality.
Teachers receive sufficient preparation before entering the classroom.
Preparation was strongly connected to confidence.
High confidence among educators reporting high preparation.
Association: V = .63High confidence among educators reporting high preparation.
Association: V = .71So what are educators actually doing?
The literacy block reported by respondents was broad. These are practices respondents reported using regularly.
The biggest problem may not be knowing what to do.
identified time as a barrier to effective reading instruction.
Planning time
Only about one in three reported adequate planning time.
Coaching
Fewer than four in ten reported useful literacy coaching or feedback.
Other pressures
Behavior, attendance, class size, curriculum limitations, testing pressure, intervention capacity, and staffing also surfaced.
Leadership showed up. Big time.
Educators who viewed their leaders as knowledgeable about literacy were much more likely to report supportive organizational conditions.
Associations ranged from V = .29 to .38. These results are associative and do not establish causation.
Confidence isn't the same thing as system capacity.
Dyslexia
reported a clear and consistently applied identification/referral process.
49.7% disagreed that formal training adequately prepared them; 43.6% disagreed that sufficient resources were provided.
EB/EL students
felt very or extremely prepared to teach reading to emergent bilingual / English learner students.
21.2% reported EB/EL-focused professional development; 10.3% access to a bilingual specialist.
Special education
felt very or extremely confident teaching reading.
Yet 52.1% disagreed that they had enough time to collaborate with special education personnel.
Reading skill isn't the whole story.
Discuss
believed students willingly discuss what they read.
Enjoy
believed most students enjoy reading.
Persist
believed students willingly persist through challenging texts.
Educators are actually reading the research.
reported reading original reading research at least monthly.
Greater research engagement was associated with stronger support for supported challenging-text reading and greater attention to fluency. Many core beliefs, however, differed little by research-reading frequency.
We're using AI. We're not sure we trust it.
used AI at least monthly.
had at least moderate concern that AI-generated literacy materials could be inaccurate or misaligned with research.
believed AI will improve literacy instruction over the next five years.
Rural. Suburban. Urban.
Rural
Time · Behavior · Capacity
Suburban
Time · Behavior · Capacity
Urban
Time · Behavior · Capacity
The numbers only tell part of the story.
The open-ended responses added an important layer. Educators weren't simply choosing sides. Again and again, they described the need to balance evidence with expertise, professional judgment, and the needs of actual students.
What needs more attention?
Respondents repeatedly pointed toward a broader literacy curriculum: fluency, writing, background knowledge, vocabulary and morphology, comprehension, and foundational skills beyond the earliest grades.
The message was not simply “more phonics” or “more comprehension.” Educators described multiple pieces that have to work together.
When does a good practice become a problem?
Respondents raised concerns about practices such as phonemic awareness, phonics, comprehension strategies, small groups, and independent reading when they became isolated, excessive, scripted, or treated as appropriate for every student in every situation.
The criticism was often about how a practice was used—not simply whether it should be used.
What gets overlooked?
Respondents frequently highlighted fluency and repeated reading, writing, vocabulary, background knowledge, explicit instruction, read-alouds, morphology, encoding, and supported peer reading.
Many of the responses emphasized active, teacher-mediated instruction rather than a single program or approach.
What does research sometimes miss?
Time. Behavior. Class size. Interruptions. Heterogeneous student needs. Mandates. Staffing. Resources. Teacher workload.
Evidence eventually has to survive contact with an actual classroom.
Educators valued evidence. They also wanted enough expertise, time, and professional judgment to use it well.
“What works?” isn't the only question.
When educators were asked what they would want to ask reading researchers, their questions pushed beyond whether an intervention produced an effect. They wanted to know how evidence translates to different students, different classrooms, and real instructional conditions.
Maybe literacy education doesn't have a consensus problem.
Maybe it has a capacity problem.
A snapshot from across the country.
The final analytic sample included 248 U.S.-based educators from 46 states and the District of Columbia, with every U.S. Census region represented. Respondents worked across roles and grade levels; grade-level items allowed multiple selections.
Representation by U.S. Census region
Primary professional role
Grade levels served
Grade-level percentages do not total 100% because respondents could select more than one grade level.
10+ years
About 85% of respondents had more than 10 years of experience in education.
Public schools
Most respondents worked in public-school settings.
Suburban
40.1% suburban, 30.0% rural, 15.9% urban, and 13.7% mixed settings.
How to read these findings.
Limitations
The NRIS was designed as a descriptive national snapshot, not a nationally representative probability sample. The findings describe the educators who participated and should not be generalized to all U.S. educators. Most findings rely on self-report, and sample size varies by item. Relationships reported here are associations and should not be interpreted as causal.
The findings are best used to identify patterns, questions, and areas for further study rather than to estimate the views or practices of every U.S. educator.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to the educators across the country who gave their time and shared their experiences: classroom teachers, reading specialists, interventionists, literacy coaches, administrators, and teacher educators.
The goal of the NRIS was simple: to better understand what reading instruction actually looks like in classrooms and schools. This work was possible because educators were willing to tell us.
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How We Teach Reading: A National Snapshot of America's Classrooms
Findings from the National Reading Instruction Survey
Percentages are based on the applicable NRIS item; sample size varies by question. See the full report for complete methods, tables, analyses, qualitative findings, and interpretation.