[2][3][4] The project involved thousands of schools and teachers in New York and around the country in an ongoing, multi-faceted in-service community of practitioners engaged in the application and continual refinement of approaches to helping children become effective writers and readers.
[11] Curriculum developed by Project staff supports a balanced literacy approach to reading and writing instruction that is in wide use across the United States.
[13][12][14] In New York City schools that work closely with TCRWP, 20% more students performed at or above standards on the state's English Language Arts test in 2016.
These books are designed for students who read both on grade level and below, and each library contains between 450 and 700 titles spanning from fiction and nonfiction genres such as classics, sports, science, mystery, fantasy, biography, and history, and features a strong social justice component.
[22] In October 2020, APM Reports published a statement by The Teachers College of Reading and Writing Project discussing recent research findings that will lead to what TCRWP referred to as a "rebalancing" of their curriculum.
[7] In 2022 the New York Times reported that Calkins had made "a major retreat" and is now "embrac[ing] phonics and the science of reading."
The Times reported that Margaret Goldberg, a leader of the science of reading movement that has been highly critical of the TCRWP's approach, "said Professor Calkins's changes cannot repair the harm done to generations of students.