Q&A with Rachel Schachter on her latest grants addressing Illinois’ literacy crisis
A new, IGPA-supported project will investigate how professionals working in schools and districts interpret and implement Illinois’ Comprehensive Literacy Plan in practice. Rachel Schachter, the project lead and associate professor of education psychology at UIC, discusses the factors contributing to declining literacy rates and how the research team plans to study differences across school communities.
Why are literacy rates among U.S. youth so low right now?
Schachter: There’s no single cause. A major factor was the disruption caused by COVID-19, including lost instructional time and challenges providing high-quality early literacy instruction during remote learning. But there are also broader systemic issues at play, including inequities in school resources, infrastructure, and social support systems.
We’ve also seen rapid demographic changes in schools, including increases in multilingual learners. Many teachers have not necessarily been fully prepared through teacher education programs to support multilingual students. At the same time, schools have increased their use of technology in classrooms, and we still don’t fully understand the long-term impacts of that shift on literacy development.
There are also policy-related factors. Following the No Child Left Behind era and Race to the Top initiatives, there has been increasing attention to student and teacher performance and schools face growing pressure around assessments and accountability. Altogether, these overlapping factors have contributed to declines in literacy outcomes, underscoring the importance of understanding how data-based decision making is interpreted and enacted in practice to better support schools and districts.
Esther Lindström, associate professor of special education at UIC, and I have also received a $10M Department of Education grant to launch WORDS Illinois, a large-scale effort to strengthen early literacy instruction in schools across the state. Through it, teachers learn how to apply evidence-based reading practices in their classrooms, make data-driven decisions about instruction and give better support to students from pre-kindergarten through third grade.
Your IGPA grant proposal mentions studying differences between rural and urban schools. What will that research focus on?
Schachter: Meaghan McKenna, co-PI and assistant professor of speech and hearing science, and I are interested in understanding how literacy policies are implemented across different school settings and student populations. We’ll examine perspectives on literacy plans based on factors such as rural versus urban schools, as well as socioeconomic indicators like free and reduced lunch percentages.
We also want to better understand how school demographics, including the percentage of multilingual learners in a district, may influence implementation of literacy initiatives. Prior research suggests policies are often implemented differently depending on community context, available resources, and student needs.
What do you hope this research will accomplish?
Schachter: We hope this project will provide a clearer understanding of how literacy policies are being implemented across Illinois schools and whether schools have the resources and support needed to successfully carry them out. While many states and districts have adopted evidence-based literacy initiatives in recent years, there is still limited research on how those policies are experienced by educators in different communities. Our survey project will give school administrators, teachers, and specialists a platform to share their experiences implementing the state literacy plan.
This research will examine how factors such as staffing capacity, professional development, access to instructional materials, student demographics, and local resources shape implementation. We’re particularly interested in understanding the conditions that shape literacy plan implementation in schools serving higher percentages of multilingual learners or economically disadvantaged students.
Another important goal is to identify where educators feel they have experienced successes and need additional support. Teachers and administrators are being asked to implement increasingly complex literacy reforms while also addressing learning loss and broader student needs following the pandemic. By gathering perspectives directly from schools, we hope to highlight both successful strategies and persistent challenges.
Ultimately, the findings could help inform future state and local policy decisions, strengthen teacher preparation and professional learning opportunities, and support more equitable literacy outcomes for students across Illinois.
School districts interested in participating in the WORDS Illinois program can contact Rachel Schachter at rachels@uic.edu.
