The Knowledge Gap: How It Affects Reading Performance and How to Fix It

Presented by John Carroll, GM, K12 Curriculum Services; and Natalie Wexler, Consultant and Author

Sponsored by XanEdu, a Scholarus Learning Company

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Our students’ performance on the whole on national reading tests has not improved over the past two decades (NAEP, 2023). More troubling, the gap in scores between socioeconomic groups has remained stubbornly wide.

Recent reform efforts have focused on improving instruction in phonics and other foundational skills. That’s crucial, but the evidence indicates it’s not enough. We also need to change our approach to reading comprehension to take account of a key factor that has long been overlooked: knowledge.

Some students are better able to acquire knowledge of the world outside of school beginning at birth, enabling them to read more complex text. Others rely on school for that kind of knowledge. If they don’t start acquiring it early, the gap between “good” and “poor” readers only grows wider as grades go up.

View this edWebinar to hear Natalie Wexler, education journalist and author of The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America’s Broken Education System—and How to Fix It, share the research along with her insights and perspectives on how we can give all students access to the kind of knowledge that enables reading comprehension—and learning in general.

This recorded edWebinar is of interest to K-12 teachers, librarians, and school and district leaders and is part of the Leading by Design: 6 Initiatives You Can’t Afford to Get Wrong district leadership series where you learn from leaders who are pulling together the elements of successful schooling.

About the Presenters

John Carroll joined XanEdu, now a part of the Scholarus Learning group of companies, as the GM, K12 Curriculum Services. In his role, John is responsible for the strategic vision and implementation of XanEdu’s K-12 product roadmap and its content/curriculum vision. John has over 15 years of edtech experience in the K-12 school market including product management, marketing, and strategy roles at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw Hill Education, Pearson School, and Scholastic. John holds a BA in economics from Tufts University and an MBA from Northeastern University.

Natalie Wexler is an education writer and the author of The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America’s Broken Education System—and How to Fix It (Avery, 2019). She is also the co-author, with Judith C. Hochman, of The Writing Revolution: A Guide to Advancing Thinking Through Writing in All Subjects and Grades (Jossey-Bass, 2017), and the host of Reading Comprehension Revisited, a six-episode series for the Knowledge Matters Podcast. Her articles and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The American Scholar, and other publications. She a senior contributor to Forbes.com, and she has a free Substack newsletter called Minding the Gap. Natalie lives in Washington, D.C.

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