High Progress Literacy

Research should be useful

In the world of K-12 education, research is useful when it guides our practice and decision-making in meaningful ways.

HPL stands firmly on a body of research that helps us to understand a specific set of classroom practices that significantly impact not just literacy achievement, but learning in all areas. For life.

We use this body of research to help teachers and leaders to put in place the key elements of classrooms that consistently lead to better outcomes for kids. What better outcomes? How about entire cohorts of students who:

• know how to read deeply and closely to learn and communicate in every subject,
• know how to use reading, writing, speaking, and listening as tools of inquiry across the disciplines,
• learn how to learn independently and collaboratively, and
• learn how to raise questions, solve problems, tackle challenging material and persevere through the hard parts.

These are observable, tangible outcomes that researchers noticed in high progress classrooms. And we have figured out how to replicate those results.

And test scores? Yes! Students who learn how to do these things knock the top out of those pesky accountability measures we have to give every year. Not because we teach to the test, but because they know how to handle the specific demands of reading, writing, thinking, and learning from informational texts across the curriculum.

So please explore. Learn about the research that grounds and guides the decisions we make in the work we do. And while you’re at it, take a look at the results we are getting.