School leaders are right to protect literacy time. Students need substantial time for reading and writing instruction, especially when they are behind.

But protected time can create a false sense of security.

Matthew Kraft and Sarah Novicoff make a related point in their work on instructional time. Time matters, but schools have to convert time in school into active learning time. That conversion is not automatic. Interruptions, absences, routines, off-task behavior, transitions, and weak task design all reduce the amount of time students spend learning.

The same idea applies inside the literacy block.

A 90-minute block can become much less than 90 minutes of actual reading instruction. The first few minutes disappear into morning routines. A transition takes longer than expected. Directions stretch. Students rotate into activities that are loosely connected to the lesson. Independent work keeps the room quiet, but does not require much reading, writing, or thinking.

None of this means teachers are not working hard.

It means the schedule is only the starting point.

If leaders want to understand the quality of literacy instruction, they have to look past the block itself and study the minutes students experience.…time spent guessing a word’s meaning is far less productive than time spent using and applying the word’s meaning in increasingly complex situations…

Strong literacy instruction gives students repeated opportunities to practice the things that actually build reading ability.

The What Works Clearinghouse practice guide on foundational skills emphasizes explicit instruction and practice with sound-letter connections, decoding, word analysis, word reading, and connected text reading. The National Reading Panel found that guided oral reading with feedback supports word recognition, fluency, and comprehension.

Leader lens: When leaders walk into literacy instruction, the first question should be, "What are students practicing right now?"

That question cuts through a lot of noise. It moves the walkthrough from schedule compliance to instructional substance.

In word work, students should be decoding, encoding, spelling, and analyzing word parts.

In fluency work, students should be reading connected text with guidance and feedback.

In writing, students should be composing, revising, and working with language.

And in comprehension work, students should be building a deep understanding of the text in front of them.

That last point matters.

Too often, comprehension time gets reduced to practicing isolated skills: identify the main idea, find the author's purpose, make an inference, compare and contrast. Those skills are not meaningless, but they are not the goal by themselves. A student can be taught to hunt for a main idea sentence without developing a strong understanding of what the text actually says.

Comprehension instruction should not become a scavenger hunt for skill labels.

The goal is for students to understand the text deeply. That means they spend time reading the text, rereading important sections, answering text-dependent questions, explaining how evidence supports their thinking, and discussing meaning with precision.

A better walkthrough question is not, "What comprehension skill is posted today?"

The better question is, "How is this task helping students understand this text more deeply?"

This is where leaders need some nuance.

It would be easy to turn this into an argument against worksheets or independent work. That would miss the point.

Shanahan's post on seatwork makes a better distinction. Independent work can be useful when it asks students to practice something worth getting better at. The issue is not whether students are working independently. The issue is whether the task has enough instructional value to deserve the minute it receives.

Low-value seatwork keeps students occupied.

Better practice asks students to read, think, write, decode, encode, analyze language, or apply something they have been taught.

This matters because comprehension is powered by knowledge.

Vocabulary and world knowledge are not separate from comprehension. They are part of what makes comprehension possible. The well-known baseball study by Donna Recht and Lauren Leslie showed this clearly. Students who knew a lot about baseball understood and recalled a baseball passage better than students who knew little about baseball, even when those students were otherwise stronger readers.

That finding should shape how leaders think about comprehension time.

Generic comprehension-skill practice does not build much knowledge. Students may get better at recognizing the format of a "main idea" question, but that does not necessarily help them understand science, history, literature, or the next complex text they encounter. Deep work with a worthwhile text does more. It builds vocabulary, background knowledge, and conceptual understanding while students practice making meaning from language.

That kind of work should also give students chances to discuss the text and respond in writing. Discussion helps students test their understanding, hear how others are making sense of the same evidence, and clarify ideas that are still fuzzy. Writing does something even more powerful. When students write about a text, they have to retrieve information, organize ideas, choose precise language, and connect evidence to a claim. That process strengthens learning and memory. Writing is not just a way to show comprehension. It is one of the ways students build it.

There is a big difference between a worksheet that asks students to circle a generic main idea from four shallow options and a task that asks students to reread paragraph 6, explain how the author develops a claim, and support the answer with two details from the text.

Both may look like independent work.

Only one is likely to strengthen comprehension because only one is helping students build knowledge from the text.

Leaders do not need to ban a category of activities. They need to press for better tasks.

Practice matters, but practice with feedback is stronger.

This is especially clear in fluency work. The National Reading Panel found support for guided oral reading, where students read aloud and receive correction, guidance, or feedback from a teacher, peer, or parent. A 2024 review by Karianne Megard Gronli and colleagues also emphasizes the importance and complexity of teacher feedback during oral reading.

The leadership implication is straightforward.

When students are practicing, leaders should look for feedback loops.

What is the student practicing? What does the teacher learn from the student's response? What feedback does the student receive? Does the student get another opportunity to apply that feedback?

Without feedback, practice can reinforce mistakes or leave students stuck.

With feedback, practice becomes instruction.

That does not mean every student needs constant teacher correction every minute. It does mean the design of the block should give students enough opportunities to try, receive information about their performance, and try again.

If you lead literacy work in a school or district, do not start by rewriting the master schedule.

Start smaller.

Pick one grade level. Visit several classrooms during the literacy block. Spend ten minutes in each room focused only on student practice.

Ask five questions:

That last question is the one leaders should sit with.

Not every minute will be perfect. Classrooms are human places. Transitions happen. Directions are necessary. Teachers have to manage a lot at once.

But patterns matter.

If students are consistently spending too little time reading, writing, decoding, encoding, discussing text, or receiving feedback, the literacy block is not doing enough work.

The answer may not be more time.

The answer may be better use of the time already protected.

Protecting the literacy block is necessary, but it is not sufficient.

Leaders have to study the quality of the minutes inside the block.

That means looking closely at student work, not just teacher activity. It means asking whether comprehension instruction is helping students understand worthwhile texts, not just rehearse skill labels. It means distinguishing meaningful independent practice from low-value seatwork. It means checking whether students receive feedback that helps them improve.

The point is not to make literacy instruction feel more complicated.

The point is to make the time matter.

When students need to grow as readers, they cannot afford long stretches of activity that looks productive but does not give them enough practice with the work that builds reading ability.

The next time you visit a literacy block, look past the schedule.

Watch the student work.

That is where the truth of the block lives.

Tim Shanahan: How Would You Schedule Reading Instruction?

The source piece for this issue. Shanahan argues that literacy schedules should focus on the amount and quality of instruction students actually receive.

Tim Shanahan: Seatwork That Makes Sense for Reading

A useful companion piece for thinking about independent practice without falling into simplistic "worksheets are bad" arguments.

Kraft and Novicoff: Time for School

A leader-friendly summary of why time matters and why scheduled time has to become active learning time.

What Works Clearinghouse: Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in K-3

An evidence-based guide for the foundational skills students need to practice in early reading instruction.

Donna Recht and Lauren Leslie: Effect of Prior Knowledge on Good and Poor Readers' Memory of Text

The original baseball study, useful for explaining why background knowledge and vocabulary are central to comprehension.

National Reading Panel: Report Findings

Still useful for its findings on phonemic awareness, phonics, guided oral reading, fluency, and comprehension.

Implementing the science of reading and learning isn't a one-day workshop; it's a structural shift. If your district or network is looking for a strategic partner to help navigate the move from "guessing" to "mastery," I’m here to help. Contact me at [email protected] to schedule an initial consultation.