New Articles for Teachers
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Scaffold Mindful Silent Reading
Help students internalize and routinize their reading comprehension monitoring with this sample lesson.
Engaged, accountable reading requires students to interpret, and respond, often creatively. This article suggests several personalized ways to hold students accountable for their reading.
Developing "Student-Owned" Vocabulary
Students should learn specific vocabulary and academic language to comprehend content text, but they should also become independent in understanding and owning vocabulary. This article offers tips for developing students' "vocabulary ownership."
Develop Fluency Using Content-Based Texts
Fluency is the missing piece of the reading puzzle for many older students. They can decode, but they cannot do it automatically and accurately enough to comprehend text. Here are some fluency-building activities to complement content delivery. See also Teach Students How to Fluently Read Multisyllabic Content Vocabulary.
The Teaching Moves of a Strategic Teacher
Research demonstrates the effectiveness of the 12 strategic teaching moves described in this article. On any given day in any given classroom, the strategic teacher employs all of these moves — whether with the whole class, a small group, or just one student.
Extended Writing-to-Learn Strategies
Writing enables students to process, organize, formulate, and extend their thinking about what they have been learning. In addition, teachers can also assign writing to help students evaluate what they know and understand about a topic. These writing-to-learn strategies help foster students' abilities to make predictions, build connections, raise questions, discover new ideas, and promote higher-level thinking.
Reading (and Scaffolding) Expository Texts
To help students comprehend expository text structures, teachers can acquaint them with the signal or cue words authors utilize in writing each of the structures and use the graphic organizers offered in this article
Reading (and Scaffolding) Narrative Texts
Students need to learn the purposes and methods of narration in order to understand the narrative framework and to eliminate frustration when they read. When students know the narrative elements, they can more easily follow the story line and make successful predictions about what is to occur. In addition, understanding these elements develops higher-level thinking skills.
Previewing Texts in Content Classrooms
Textbook previewing strategies focus not only on the structure of the text — such as the table of contents, index, chapter introductions, and so forth — but on a content overview, which focuses on the concepts and questions covered in the chapter and their interrelationships.
Teach Vocabulary by Building Background Knowledge
Students need to develop an extensive vocabulary to read with fluency. In turn, fluency in reading leads to increased comprehension. Fluency also comes from the written language of the reader since the student writes words he or she knows. Increased comprehension enhances the written language of the learner.
A Sample Rubric for Grading Student Writing
All written work should be assessed using a rubric. Using a set of criteria linked to standards not only allows for uniform evaluation, but helps students understand what is important about an assignment and encourages them to reflect on their work.
Literacy Coaching in the Middle Grades
From time constraints to a de-emphasis on literacy to a limited research base, coaches in middle schools face challenges that do not exist in the elementary grades.
Effective Reading Programs for Middle and High Schools: A Best Evidence Synthesis
Many reading programs claim to boost student performance, but how is that measured? Johns Hopkins University examined more than 200 published studies to create this quick guide to programs.
Explicit Comprehension Strategy Instruction
Use explicit strategy instruction to make visible the invisible comprehension strategies that good readers use to understand text. Support students until they can use the strategies independently. Recycle and re-teach strategies throughout the year.
How Can Instruction Help Adolescent Students with Motivation?
Teachers have an important role to play in influencing and supporting students' motivation for learning. This article highlights four classroom strategies that educators can use to engage students with texts.
