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The Scientific Principles of Reading and Writing Instruction
Bridging the Divide Between Educational Practice and Research
Offering a neutral analysis of educational research, author Nathaniel Hansford provides a crash course on the science behind reading and writing instruction. This book empowers teachers to confidently make evidence-informed instructional decisions.
Evidence-based strategies for reading and writing instruction
Literacy instruction is a vast and ever-changing field. Distilling decades of research on reading and writing into an expedient and practical guide, educator and author Nathaniel Hansford provides an indispensable resource for educators who want to understand the science behind literacy and empower their own teaching. Gain a reliable, objective, and evidence-based overview of what’s truly effective for improving student literacy outcomes.
K–12 teachers and administrators can use this book to:
- Learn how to interpret, parse, and better engage with educational research
- Review and examine comprehensive summaries of pivotal research on literacy instruction
- Understand the evolution of continuing historical debates on effective literacy instruction
- Examine meta-analyses to critically evaluate popular teaching methods
- Evaluate the effectiveness of the most common literacy teaching methods
Related Topics
Brain-Compatible LearningInstruction
Additional Information
“In The Scientific Principles of Reading and Writing Instruction, Nathaniel Hansford teaches educators to embrace research over opinion. He breaks up key terms and goes deep into how to interpret and understand research—an area often overwhelming for educators in the classroom. He leaves no stone unturned, diving deeply into phonemic awareness, sound walls, high-frequency words, spelling, handwriting, the real differences between leveled texts and decodables, and so much more. He is also willing to tell uncomfortable truths when the research supports them. This is a brilliant, practical resource that actually helps educators do the work—a literacy masterpiece!”
“The Scientific Principles of Reading and Writing Instruction is a confident but measured guide for any literacy teacher wanting the evidence laid out without shortcuts or obscurity. Hansford pulls the full research picture into view, tackling how reading and writing can be best taught, why the evidence points where it does (including the many gaps), and how to interpret studies with discernment. It’s a rare book that deepens your expertise and sharpens your judgement!”
“It is far too easy for well-intentioned educators to get lost in a single study or misinterpret a complex effect size. In The Scientific Principles of Reading and Writing Instruction, Nathaniel Hansford provides the guardrails, signposts, and running lights we’ve been looking for. He not only provides a map; he equips educators with tools to determine for themselves which paths are truly evidence based. Drawing on his unique perspective as both teacher and researcher, Hansford writes with a clarity that is as refreshing as it is necessary.”
“I have long been an avid follower of Nathaniel Hansford’s work, watching him move in and out of big, often tricky ideas—and I am consistently impressed by the humility with which he tests his instincts against the evidence. In The Scientific Principles of Reading and Writing Instruction, the author equips educators to understand research, not just receive conclusions, and brings reading and writing into the same instructional frame, arguing that their synergy deserves more attention as a lever for literacy improvement. If you want a readable, practitioner-oriented guide that turns evidence into better day-to-day instruction, this is the book to keep within arm’s reach.”
“Written for teachers by a teacher, The Scientific Principles of Reading and Writing Instruction uses plain language to help teachers think about evidence, separate facts from fads, and judge whether instructional practices are evidence based. Drawing on meta-analytic data about effective literacy instruction, Hansford gives clear guidance on when and how to teach specific skills and what this means for classroom practice.”
