The Overstory of Literacy
The Overstory is a best-selling novel by Richard Powers. It tells the stories of a few enormous formidable trees and how their existence affects the trees’ people. I never heard of an overstory before reading the novel, and I have since learned that they are giant trees that live above the other trees in their own climate—they even breathe their own air. If nature is a metaphor for life, then we are the understory. We are connected to the overstory by our circumstances or knowledge. We advocate for science, data, and the logic that has alluded widespread adoption of evidence-based literacy instruction and interventions. We progress in some states, districts, and sectors, and it’s never fast enough or equitable enough. How can we rest with small victories when we’re looking up at redwood trees, and we have only glimpses of the sky. How we write our overstory is when we grow as strong and formidable as those unmovable redwoods. Nobody can do it alone. At Teach My Kid to Read, we believe in reaching parents and caregivers as quickly as possible and educating them about all the skills parents like me wish they had known about when our children were young. Faith Borkowsky even created a book series called “If only I would have known…” Knowledge is power, and we… | Read More »The Overstory of Literacy