About Us
Reading Universe is produced by WETA, the flagship PBS station in Washington, D.C., and is a sister site to Reading Rockets, Colorín Colorado, LD OnLine, and other award-winning national education websites. WETA developed Reading Universe in partnership with the Barksdale Reading Institute, which over 20 years helped achieve significant and sustained improvements in students’ reading scores across the state of Mississippi.
What We Do
Reading Universe gives educators clear, practical guidance on how to teach reading and writing. We use the structured literacy approach and base our work on the field's latest research. Working closely with researchers, reading coaches, and teachers, we offer classroom-proven teaching strategies, videos demonstrating best practices, and printable instructional materials. Our service is organized around the Reading Universe Taxonomy developed and refined by the Barksdale Reading Institute. The Taxonomy presents in a single graphic all the skills that students need to master to become proficient readers and writers. Reading Universe is an authoritative, engaging, media-rich service for professional learning — and it’s free for all users.
Who We Serve
If you teach children to read and write (or work with those who do), we are here for you! That includes teachers, reading coaches, paraprofessionals, education professors, professional development providers, administrators, tutors, and parents. Our content is growing by the day and will eventually span pre-kindergarten through sixth grades, but for now we are primarily focused on grades K-3.
Our Partners
Reading Universe is produced by three premier non-profit organizations: WETA, the Barksdale Reading Institute, and First Book.
Support Reading Universe
Reading Universe is a grant- and donor-funded service that provides research-based strategies and practical guidance to help educators and parents teach children to read and write. For now, our content spans kindergarten to third grade, but your donation will help us expand to cover pre-kindergarten through sixth grade. Please give today!
Reading Universe is made possible by generous support from Jim & Donna Barksdale; the Hastings/Quillin Fund, an advised fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (opens in new window); the AFT (opens in new window); the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation (opens in new window); and three anonymous donors.
