Technolandy

Day 31 (of SOL 2025): Literacy Scores, Libraries, and a Long-Overdue Apology for the Learning Commons Debacle

There’s been a lot of chatter lately (again) about declining literacy scores across North America. I’ve been in districts that have invested heavily in reading interventions, supports, and programs. We’ve used everything from UFLI to Wilson to Microsoft Learning Accelerators that do running records better than I ever could. We’ve got data. We’ve got basic decoding skills. And yet — I’m not convinced we’ve got readers.

Not the “can read” kind — the want to read kind.

It’s made me reflect on my time as a librarian. And here’s a thought I can’t shake:

Is it a coincidence that our reading scores have fallen as we’ve steadily reduced the number of trained teacher-librarians in our schools?

We’ve done lots of other work: sight word lists, reading groups, structured literacy… and it’s not that these efforts are useless — far from it. There are individual success stories. But if I look at the street-level data — the classroom observations, the hallway book chats, the home reading logs that never return — I worry that the joy of reading is missing.

Which brings me to an apology….

I was an early adopter of the “Learning Commons” model. I liked the idea: libraries as flexible, multi-use hubs full of books and tech, where learning could spill into every corner. But here’s where we (okay, I) may have gone wrong: we embraced the concept but didn’t protect the librarian.

Instead of staffing libraries with qualified teacher-librarians, we staffed them with prep coverage. The library became a place teachers could drop students off — not necessarily a place for building readers. The Learning Commons became a Swiss Army knife of education… but in too many cases, nobody kept sharpening the blade.

So here’s my radical proposal:

Keep staffing libraries at current FTEs to meet prep coverage needs — but then add a 1.0 teacher-librarian. At every school. No matter the size.

A full-time librarian isn’t a luxury. It’s a necessity — for students, staff, and parents. A librarian can help navigate complex questions about access and age-appropriateness (e.g., yes, books like Gender Queer should be in schools — and yes, we need professionals helping place them in the right hands). A librarian can champion equity by ensuring that every learner has access to current, high-interest, culturally relevant books — and yes, that includes graphic novels. (You can call them “comics” — I always will.)

People still roll their eyes at Dog Man… but Dav Pilkey is a more powerful authorial influence than most teachers realize. And let’s be honest: no one fondly remembers the black-line Fountas & Pinnell readers they were assigned in Grade 2. But they do remember the first book they fell in love with. The one they read for the hundredth time under the covers with a flashlight.

If we want better literacy outcomes, let’s stop pretending that programs alone will do the work. We need:

More people in our libraries. More current, diverse titles. More joy in reading.

And yes, let’s go even further. Let’s make space in our libraries — and our curriculum — for new literacies.

Let kids read more comics. (Start with Joanne Pak’s LidSurvey.) Let them explore video games as narrative experiences. (Why not have a small game collection in your school library?) Let’s finally admit that media creation — YouTube, TikTok, podcasting — is literacy. A decade ago, my son asked, “If schools are preparing us for the future, where’s the class on YouTube?” He was right.

There’s one more point I keep circling back to — and it’s one we don’t talk about enough: the reading that happens outside of school. If we want kids to be readers, they need to see us reading.

We need to read with learners.

Read to learners.

Read in front of learners.

Of all ages.

Kids do what they see.

So let’s let them see joy.

In the meantime… Here’s an article also talking about reading that needs to happen outside of school (at home) but correlates with my own recent rants on how we, as educators, need to do a mindful job of being reading role models… read with learners… to learners… in front of learners… of all ages —> kids do what they see.

https://apple.news/Ah3feehZOTdeBXRKP30EF6w