Teachers and educational leaders know that achieving reading proficiency requires more than the acquisition of individual skills. Just as athletes and dancers rely on expert instruction, consistent coaching, and dedicated practice to hone their physical abilities, students need guidance and practice to develop and refine their reading and writing skills. With the right support, students can train their minds and fuel their self-confidence to become strong, capable readers and writers who consistently meet the demands of the grade-level curriculum and enjoy reading for all the life-enhancing pleasure it can bring.
In today’s classrooms, which have many competing demands on time, the critical role of reading practice—in its varied forms—can be sometimes overlooked. Teacher-directed instruction and skill practice to reinforce recently taught concepts are understandably prioritized. However, research consistently points to the importance of ensuring that students engage in regular reading practice with connected text (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000) and has emphasized the essential role of reading volume in literacy development. When students consistently spend substantial amounts of time reading texts at their appropriate level, they can apply and integrate skills learned while strengthening vocabulary and increasing fluency and comprehension (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1998).
Research in expert performance in fields like music, chess, and athletics has found that deliberate practice—characterized by individualized goals, immediate feedback and coaching, and data-driven adjustments—leads to expert-level performance (Ericsson et al., 1993; Lehmann & Ericsson, 1996). Applying this concept to reading could have a powerful impact. In fact, Dweck’s work on growth mindset (2006), Duckworth’s research on grit (2007, 2011), and Ericsson and Pool’s exploration of deliberate practice principles in fields such as education (2016) all suggest that deliberate reading practice could greatly benefit students as they move through the various stages of reading development to become fluent, confident readers.
Deliberate reading practice involves:
If resources were unlimited, every student working toward reading proficiency would regularly engage in deliberate reading practice with a teacher or trained tutor. While this is possible in some settings, it is unrealistic for most educators to provide every student with such individualized attention. Here, educational technology can play a uniquely valuable role. By judiciously leveraging tools—especially those using carefully designed, intentionally constrained artificial intelligence (AI)—students can engage in high-impact reading practice while teachers receive actionable data and insights. This approach makes the vision of personalized, deliberate reading practice for every student both achievable and realistic.