A Book Review: Leveled Reading, Leveled Lives: How Students’ Reading Achievement Has Been Held Back and What We Can Do About It (Harvard Education Press, 2025). A book review by Lynne R. Dorfman
Timothy Shanahan, a professor emeritus/educator who has long influenced literacy instruction in our country, has written a new book, Leveled Reading, Leveled Lives: How Students’ Reading Achievement Has Been Held Back and What We Can Do About It (Harvard Education Press, 2025). In it, Shanahan discusses a common teaching practice in our classrooms that promote the idea of matching students with “just-right” books. Shanahan states that this protocol of getting students reading different texts depending on their assessed reading level is holding many students back. In addition, it is taking teachers away from time that could be spent helping all students learn how to understand challenging texts. He argues that comprehension skills cannot improve if students are not challenged to negotiate more complex, difficult texts.
Shanahan explains that it’s not helping anyone, and in content areas such as science and social studies, teachers are reading the texts aloud to the students. So, when do striving readers get the chance or develop the strategies and skills to tackle complex material on their own?
Shanahan is advocating for all students to read grade-level texts together, with teachers providing more support for those who need it. Everyone will have the same instructional goal, and some students may move more quickly into independent work while others receive more support in the form of another lesson or one-on-one conference or small group instruction. In this way, more students have a chance at reaching the grade-level learning goal.
Shanahan’s new book outlines a toolbox of strategies for tackling difficult texts, such as looking up unfamiliar vocabulary, rereading confusing passages, or breaking down long sentences. He is not a believer in drilling students on skills like identifying the main idea or making inferences. Although there seems to be little agreement on how to boost reading achievement for our children, Shanahan states there is not a body of strong evidence that points to greater improvement in reading achievement when students only read texts at their level. He also argues that developing background knowledge is not as powerful as explicit comprehension instruction. By contrast, a 2024 analysis found that the schools that were most effective were those that keep instruction at grade level. Shanahan admits that more research is needed to target which comprehension strategies work best for which students and under which conditions. Shanahan believes that Vygotsky’s work is often misunderstood. Vygotsky believed teachers should guide students to learn challenging things they cannot yet do on their own. Shanahan’s critique of reading instruction applies to children in second grade and above who are learning how to read and focusing on making meaning. In K-1, students are still learning phonics and how to decode the words on the page. Learning to decode first is important. Shanahan says there are rare exceptions to teaching all children at grade level. Advanced readers can be challenged through independent reading time and by exploring more complex ideas within grade-level texts. Shanahan also discusses the role of AI and of the parents.He also is concerned about what happens outside of school where our students aren’t reading much at all. His advice to parents is to let children read whatever they enjoy, regardless of level, but to set consistent expectations. He says parents are the adults and need to take responsibility. The book is filled with practical advice for implementing grade-level reading instruction, including detailed descriptions of the types of instruction and scaffolding needed to increase students’ reading achievement. His book is a powerful call for giving our students the guidance and support they need to make challenging texts part of their daily reading experiences.
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