‘When you learn to read, you fly’: inside the University of Florida Literacy Institute
For more than 25 years, Holly Lane, Ph.D., has been laser-focused on a global educational goal: to ensure that students worldwide have access to information about reading. Her passion project, known as the University of Florida Literacy Institute, or UFLI, has already improved the literacy skills of more than 10 million children.
What began as a modest classroom tool now has a Facebook community of over 273,000 members; 18 million online toolbox views; and more than 500,000 instructional manuals in classrooms. And as the UFLI brand gains traction, Lane continues to champion what the acronym means and why the program has been so life-changing.
“When you learn to read, you fly,” said Lane, who serves as the UFLI director and a professor of special education at UF.
UFLI is an ongoing effort by UF faculty and students to improve literacy outcomes for struggling students by addressing two key areas: reader development and teacher development. The program began in 1998 as a tutoring model for beginning readers working with Lane’s pre-service teachers. The idea was that, if teachers understood how to employ effective, evidence-based practices in a one-on-one tutoring session, they could transfer those skills to their small-group or classroom instruction. However, some teachers struggled to make that transition, so a dedicated small-group lesson model was created.
That foundation eventually expanded into a dyslexia support program and caught the attention of a surprising partner, best-selling author and philanthropist James Patterson. Known worldwide for his literacy advocacy and generous support of reading initiatives, Patterson has become a key benefactor for the program.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, a challenge turned into a breakthrough. UFLI started its Virtual Teaching Resource Hub and, in the first week, about 70,000 teachers visited the site and downloaded materials. The turning point came when a school in St. Augustine reached out to UFLI, asking for professional development.
“I said, ‘Well, what if we planned the lessons for you instead of teaching you how to plan these lessons?’” Lane said.
What followed was what Lane called her “accidental phonics program.”
“They ended the year with the best scores they'd ever seen, better than their pre-COVID scores, and that was unheard of,” Lane said.
That success led to an effective district-wide pilot in Alachua County with 21 elementary schools. UFLI leaders decided to publish the contents of the program and create a manual that individual teachers could purchase. This concept boomed, and the program even made waves overseas.
“Starting with the virtual teaching hub… we had a huge following in Perth and in Melbourne, and now we have an Australian edition of the manual,” Lane said. “We’ve been in every state and every Canadian province and territory, but we're also now in something like 60-some other countries.”
Patterson has continued his support by directing efforts toward expanding UFLI’s reach in Florida, aiming to bring the program to every district in the state. Looking ahead, Lane is especially excited about UFLI’s new technology.
“We're calling it our assessment and planning portal,” Lane said. “Teachers assess two skills a week, and they enter their data into this program and it spits out small-group lesson plans for the following week that target specific needs of their students.”
The data input system is highly advanced, requiring the teacher to simply hold up work in front of a webcam, and the system then reads the student handwriting and imports the data. The program’s structure also ensures that students apply new concepts daily and revisit them regularly.
But behind it all is a deeply connected community. For Lane, the success of UFLI boils down to people.
“We have an amazing team here,” Lane said. “If anything, that's my superpower, finding really good people who are really good humans but also really good at what they do.”
For more information about UFLI, visit ufli.education.ufl.edu.