What should an elementary reading block look like?
For such a common part of the school day, it鈥檚 surprising to find that there鈥檚 no one right answer.
More than 40 states have passed legislation requiring that schools use evidence-based approaches to teaching early reading since 2013. Almost all of these laws outline the components of effective instruction, usually including the teaching of foundational skills like phonics alongside fluency practice, vocabulary, and comprehension.
But while research shows what components matter, it doesn鈥檛 have as much to say about the how: the routines, precise time breakdown, and sequencing of activities that ideally get kids reading well. As a result, exactly how schools prioritize these different dimensions of reading instruction varies. And decisions about what skills get the lion鈥檚 share of attention can be controversial鈥攁nd consequential.
As the 鈥渟cience of reading鈥� movement has spread, some of its critics have claimed that teachers are spending too much time on foundational skills at the expense of reading stories aloud and developing students鈥� speaking and listening abilities, and exposing them to background knowledge.
In turn, proponents of explicit, systematic instruction in foundational reading skills have argued that schools can do both. They鈥檝e pushed back against the notion that the science of reading only refers to phonics instruction.
Research on time allocation in reading classrooms doesn鈥檛 offer much in the way of prescriptions.
In the early 2000s, recommended that elementary schools dedicate a 鈥渁 protected, uninterrupted block鈥� of more than 90 minutes daily to reading instruction. Data show schools still land right around that mark. On average, teachers in grades K-3 report spending , according to a 2018 national survey.
Most studies of classroom reading instruction don鈥檛 test 鈥榙osage鈥�
Experts in and academic interventions often , two to three hours total.
There鈥檚 some research that examines time on specific component skills. Reading researcher Carol Connor published several studies in 2000s analyzing what type of, and how much, . She found, for instance, that children with weaker decoding skills benefited more from teacher-led phonics instruction than students with stronger decoding skills.
Other more recent studies have also looked at time allocation. One 2024 study of phonemic awareness instruction found that after about 10 hours of teaching total, students in grades pre-K-1 saw diminishing returns.
Still, many studies aren鈥檛 designed to test dosage.
A study might, for example, test the effectiveness of a 20-minute phonics intervention against business-as-usual instruction. Even if the phonics lessons have a positive effect, that doesn鈥檛 necessarily mean that 20 minutes is the optimal amount of time to spend on them. It just means that the lessons led to better outcomes for students than what the teachers had previously been doing. Fifteen minutes of phonics, or 30 minutes, might be more effective still.
Education Week spoke with two teachers who are navigating these open questions as they work with their own students. They each cover almost all of the same components of literacy instruction, but in a different organizational structure. The similarities and points of divergence show the wide variety of what evidence-based teaching can look like.
See below for their schedules and insights into why they organize their days the way they do.
Anjanette McNeely
Kindergarten teacher, Windridge Elementary, Kaysville, Utah
- Morning circle, 5 minutes: Students take turns speaking, sharing feelings, or answering a prompt. McNeely asks students to speak in complete sentences, a request designed to build their oral-language abilities.
- Read-aloud, 5 minutes: McNeely reads a picture book, highlighting new vocabulary words. She asks students to give her the gist when she鈥檚 done, giving them practice with listening comprehension.
- Phonics skills, 30 minutes: Kindergarteners learn letter-sound correspondences and practice reading words. McNeely weaves in some grammar instruction, too, noting which words are nouns and which are verbs.
- Small group work, 15 minutes: Tutors visit the classroom to work with students grouped based on need. Some get extra practice reading and writing letters, while others might be tackling new words or passages.
- Listening comprehension and vocabulary, 25-30 minutes: McNeely reads aloud texts from her curriculum, which is designed to build social studies and science knowledge. She teaches vocabulary and asks students comprehension questions.
- Writing, 25-30 minutes: Students write in response to these content readings.
- Handwriting, 7 minutes: Kindergarteners practice forming letters, tracing and copying on paper.
Total: 112-132 minutes
McNeely is a veteran kindergarten teacher, now in her 17th year. She tries to weave in reading and writing practice throughout her day. It鈥檚 a habit she picked up years ago, when kindergarten in her district was only half-day, and every minute was precious.
McNeely鈥檚 morning circle, for example, isn鈥檛 technically part of her literacy time, but she tries to use it to develop students鈥� speaking and listening skills. In her classroom play center, set up as a veterinary hospital, students read and write 鈥減rescriptions鈥� for pets.
Social studies, science, and reading are usually blended in McNeely鈥檚 classroom. Most of her kindergarteners鈥� social studies and science content comes through their reading curriculum, though she supplements where the program doesn鈥檛 cover grade-level standards in those subjects.
Melding the schedule in this way leaves time for 45 minutes of daily choice time. During that period, students can play in the vet center, do puzzles, or use a sand table, among other classic kindergarten activities.
Kindergartners need structured reading teaching, McNeely said, but she also values free play for children at this age. 鈥淚 think we can have both,鈥� she said.
Jeannette Symmonds
1st grade teacher, BelovED Community Charter, Jersey City, N.J.
- Foundational skills, 30-60 minutes: Symmonds starts her literacy block with oral and visual phonics and phonemic awareness lessons, which consist of reading and writing words. Time for this can vary greatly depending on students鈥� needs and the rest of the school day schedule, Symmonds said. Last year, her 1st graders struggled with breaking down the sounds in words, so she spent more time on phonemic awareness. That meant she usually used the full hour for foundational skills. But this year, her students don鈥檛 need as much extra practice, so her block is usually 40-45 minutes. On days when students go to special classes, like gym or music, she only has 30 minutes.
- Content literacy, 60 minutes: Symmonds reads a story aloud that serves as the anchor for the rest of the lesson. At the beginning of the year, Symmonds posed discussion questions for comprehension instruction. Now, as her 1st graders have developed their writing skills, they鈥檙e able to work on more written responses to the text.
- Grammar and construction, 15 minutes: When Symmonds has time, she incorporates some sentence-writing practice at the end of the content literacy block. Her students have, for instance, practiced expanding their writing into more complex sentences and learned about the difference between full sentences and sentence fragments.
Total: 90-135 minutes
Because beginning readers can have such varied needs, schedules need to be flexible, Symmonds said. 鈥淲e change our instruction to the data we get,鈥� she said, referring to results from student diagnostic tests.
Her school has five 1st grade classrooms. They all cover foundational skills and content literacy, and they all have the same allotted time, but they use it differently. The English-learner teacher, for instance, spends more time on writing, while the teacher in the inclusion classroom organizes the block around the schedule students follow to receive pull-out special education services.
Teaching 1st grade also means managing a lot of transitions鈥攈elping students move quickly and calmly from one activity to another, or giving them small 鈥渂rain breaks鈥� to move and stretch. At the beginning of the year, before students have these routines down, learning them cuts more into instructional time, Symmonds said.
Between planning for differentiation, and managing interruptions, the schedule is a constant balancing act, she said. 鈥淲e do the best that we can.鈥�
