Reading Comprehension
Reading isn't really reading if students don't understand what they have read. Many struggling adolescent readers can recognize and pronounce words from print, but cannot understand or answer questions about what they have just read. This section includes information on methods to improve students' comprehension. See About Teaching for additional techniques to use in the classroom.
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English Language Learners in Middle and High School
In this 45-minute video, Dr. Deborah Short, a Senior Research Associate for the Language Education and Academic Development division of the Center for Applied Linguistics, discusses how to teach content to late-entry ELLs and how to ensure reading comprehension for success in the content areas.
A Theory of Adolescent Reading: A Simple View of a Complex Process
How do adolescents move from reading words to applying knowledge learned from a text? See the adolescent reading model and the Strategic Intervention Model (SIM) clearly illustrated.
Blending Multiple Genres in Theme Baskets
The theme-basket concept of literature instruction combines several approaches known to work with marginalized readers, students with learning disabilities, and ELLs: 1) a thematic approach to teaching literature, 2) the use of children’s books in secondary classrooms, 3) the coupling of young adult books with the classics, and 4) capitalizing on young adults’ background knowledge, interests, and skills in reading multiple genres. This article includes a sample theme basket with The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck as its centerpiece.
Cognitive Strategies Tool Kit
This article describes eight cognitive strategies—including monitoring, tapping prior knowledge, and making predictions—to help readers develop their comprehension skills.
Comprehension Instruction: What Works
Without a strong background in basic skills like decoding and vocabulary-building, reading comprehension is impossible. This article offers research-based strategies for building on these and other skills to increase student understanding of what is read.
Critical Thinking: Why Is It So Hard to Teach?
Learning "critical thinking skills" can only take a student so far. Critical thinking depends on knowing relevant content very well-and thinking about it, repeatedly. Here are five strategies, consistent with the research, to help bring critical thinking into the everyday classroom.
Expect Students to Activate, Connect and Summarize Daily
The activate, connect, and summarize daily routine can help struggling adolescent readers acquire new content. It consists of asking students to activate (what did we learn yesterday?), connect (draw a connection between your life and the topic that we'll discuss today), and summarize (give me a keyword or phrase that describes today's lesson) in the classroom everyday.
For Teens, Phonics Isn't Enough
Schools often struggle to find appropriate materials and approaches to support adolescent literacy. Strategies that work for children can ignore teens' existing skills, knowledge, and life experience, and exclude them from the critical content that their peers are studying. Here are some effective teaching strategies for struggling older students.
Improving Comprehension for Students With LD
Some children can master decoding and still be poor comprehenders. Learn what interventions have been found to help these children read narrative and expository texts more strategically.
