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By: Pacific Resources for Education and Learning (2012)
By: Reading Rockets (2011)
Helping children understand the concept of sequence develops both literacy and scientific inquiry skills. Here are a few simple activities that families can do together to give kids opportunities to observe, record, and think about sequencing.
By: Reading Rockets (2011)
Learn more about how to increase higher order thinking, developing comprehension across the content areas, the value of read alouds, effective classroom strategies, and more.
By: Vanessa Morrison and Lisa Wlodarczyk (2010)
This article describes evidence-based practices that encourage first graders' engagement with texts. The authors review reading as a transactional process, revisit the benefits of reading aloud to students, provide a rationale for promoting engagement with texts, discuss three literacy strategies implemented in one first-grade classroom, and share examples of work contributed by the students.
By: Reading Rockets (2010)
Critical thinking, the ability to think deeply about a topic or a book, is an essential skill for children to develop. Here are some helpful tips and recommended books to strengthen your child's ability to think critically.
By: Paula Kluth (2010)
Reading comprehension is often a concern for the teachers of students with autism. The comprehension strategies described in this article may help some students gain comprehension skills and improve their ability to read and communicate about written material.
By: Carol McDonald Connor, Sibel Kaya, and Melissa Luck (2010)
This study describes a second-grade science curriculum designed to individualize student instruction so that students, regardless of initial science and literacy skills, gain science knowledge and reading skills. The instruction incorporates flexible, homogeneous, literacy skills-based grouping, use of leveled science text, and explicit use of discussion and comprehension strategies.
By: Reading Rockets (2009)
The best story times are very interactive: You are talking about and reading the story, your child is talking, and there is conversation taking place between the two of you. Read below to learn more about dialogic reading and PEER, a method to help you remember a few important ways to read in this interactive way.
By: Paola Pilonieta and Adriana L. Medina (2009)
Originally designed with seventh grade students, Reciprocal Teaching is a research-based strategy that teaches students to work in small groups to coordinate the use of four comprehension strategies: prediction, clarification, summarization, and student-generated questions. This article illustrates how to implement Reciprocal Teaching for the Primary Grades (RTPG). Modifications include: additional strategies, cue cards with pictures and scripts, group work interspersed with whole class follow-up, and an independent written component for individual student accountability.
By: Mariam Jean Dreher and Jennifer Letcher Gray (2009)
This article explains (a) how to teach students to identify the compare-contrast text structure, and to use this structure to support their comprehension, (b) how to use compare-contrast texts to activate and extend students' background knowledge, and (c) how to use compare-contrast texts to help students expand and enrich their vocabulary. Although these strategies can benefit all young learners, the compare-contrast text structure is particularly helpful to ELL students.
By: Alice Thomas and Glenda Thorne (2009)
Parents and teachers can do a lot to encourage higher order thinking. Here are some strategies to help foster children's complex thinking.
By: Alice Thomas and Glenda Thorne (2009)
As students grow older, they are asked by their teachers to do more and more with the information they have stored in their brains. These types of requests require accessing higher order thinking (HOT).
By: Wendy B. Meller, Danielle Richardson, and J. Amos Hatch (2009)
Teacher read-alouds are a vital part of literacy instruction in primary classrooms. Learn how to conduct read-alouds that feature high-quality children's books which will prompt children to think and talk about social issues that impact their daily lives.
By: Reading Rockets (2009)
One way to help a child comprehend what he is reading is to encourage him to visualize parts of the story in his mind. These "mind movies" help clarify information, increase understanding, and can include any of the five senses. Try these practices below when reading with your child.
By: Barbara Marinak and Linda Gambrell (2009)
Exposing young children to informational text early on can help them to handle the literacy demands of fourth grade and beyond. Practical instructional techniques can be used to promote understanding and enjoyment of informational texts. The three techniques described here — Text Impression, Guiding Questions, and the Retelling Pyramid — can help children become familiar with the language and structure of non-fiction books.
By: Sherrye Dee Garrett (2009)
Introducing elementary-aged students to local and community news through the newspaper can help them strengthen comprehension and research skills. Community news keeps it relevant to the kids, enhancing motivation to discuss and learn more about what they are reading. Classroom activities are included in this article.
By: Reading Rockets (2009)
Reading with comprehension means understanding what's been read. It takes practice, time, and patience to develop reading comprehension skills. Below is a before-during-after approach that families can use to help children learn to read for understanding.
By: Reading Rockets (2009)
What is Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) and how does it work? Find out more about CORI and how it helps children's comprehension and motivation through science inquiry.
By: Kristina Robertson (2008)
One of the most important skills students learn as they transition into middle and high school is how to get information from a non-fiction text. This skill can be especially challenging for ELLs, who may not have had much experience working independently with expository texts. This Bright Ideas article offers ways that teachers can help ELLs work effectively with non-fiction texts and includes strategies for introducing components, structure, and purpose of expository texts.
By: Marcy Zipke (2008)
Riddles are the perfect medium for learning how to manipulate language for many reasons, including students' familiarity with them and motivation for reading them. Here's how riddles can be used in the classroom to stimulate student's metalinguistic awareness.
By: Regina Boulware-Gooden, Suzanne Carreker, Ann Thornhill, and R. Malatesha Joshi (2007)
The use of metacognitive strategies helps students to "think about their thinking" before, during, and after they read.
By: Lea M. McGee and Judith Schickedanz (2007)
Research has demonstrated that the most effective read-alouds are those where children are actively involved asking and answering questions and making predictions, rather than passively listening. This article describes in detail a technique for a three-step interactive read-aloud using sophisticated storybooks.
By: Reading Rockets (2007)
You don't need to have a book in hand to help your child become a better reader. Interesting experiences give kids a broader framework for new information they might encounter in books, and when kids have lots of experiences to draw on, they have a better chance of making a connection with what they read! Help your child build background knowledge this summer with these activities.
By: John T. Guthrie, Angela McRae, and Susan Lutz Klauda (2007)
Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) teaches children reading comprehension through the integration of science and reading. Learn more about how CORI aims enhances students' reading engagement in order to increase reading ability.
By: Daniel T. Willingham (2007)
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.
By: Daniel T. Willingham (2006)
How does the mind work — and how does it learn? Teachers' instructional decisions are based on a mix of theories learned in teacher education, trial and error, craft knowledge, and gut instinct. Such gut knowledge often serves us well, but is there anything sturdier to rely on?
By: Daniel T. Willingham (2006)
Students often think they understand a body of material and, believing that they know it, stop trying to learn more. But come test time, it turns out they really don't know the material very well at all. Can cognitive science tell us anything about why students are commonly mistaken about what they know and don't know? Are there any strategies teachers can use to help students better estimate what they know?
By: Daniel T. Willingham (2006)
The author, a professor of cognitive psychology, notes, "it's true that knowledge gives students something to think about, but… knowledge does much more than just help students hone their thinking skills, it actually makes learning easier." Factual knowledge enhances cognitive processes like problem solving and reasoning, and once you have some knowledge, the brain finds it easier to get more and more knowledge.
By: Gina Carrier (2006)
In the last few years, an alarm has sounded throughout the nation's middle and high schools: too many students cannot read well. It isn't that they don't know their ABCs or how to read words. It's that they cannot understand or explain what they're reading. Johnny can read, but he doesn't understand.
By: Glenda Thorne (2006)
Effective and efficient memory is critical for reading and school success. Here are 10 strategies to help children develop their memories.
By: Daniel T. Willingham (2006)
Learning happens when we connect new information to what we already know. When children have limited knowledge about the world, they have a smaller capacity to learn more about it. Here are four ways teachers can build content knowledge that will expand the opportunity for students to forge new connections — and make them better independent readers and learners.
By: Louise Spear-Swerling (2006)
One of the most misunderstood topics in reading instruction involves the extent to which children should be encouraged to rely on context cues in reading.
By: Susan Neuman (2006)
By: Shutta Crum (2006)
Use picture books to teach young writers how to organize plot logically. This article includes examples of basic plot structures, along with picture books that use those structures.
By: E. D. Hirsch, Jr. (2006)
The federal No Child Left Behind law requires more testing of students, and has spurred some frantic and ineffectual test preparation in many schools, says the author, E. D. Hirsch, Jr. Reading tests must use unpredictable texts to be accurate measures of reading ability, but if you cannot predict the subject matter on a valid reading test, how can you prepare students? Hirsch says you can't, and, therefore, you shouldn't try. The only useful way to prepare for a reading test is indirectly by becoming a good reader of a broad range of texts, an ability that requires broad general knowledge."
By: Sebastian Wren (2005)
This article illustrates the difference between being able to decode words on a page and being able to derive meaning from the words and the concepts they are trying to convey.
By: Cara Bafile (2005)
The reader's theater strategy blends students' desire to perform with their need for oral reading practice. Reader's Theater offers an entertaining and engaging means of improving fluency and enhancing comprehension.
By: Teaching Today (2005)
Science texts are often more challenging for students than other text types. This article contains strategies teachers can use to increase reading comprehension, helping students make sense of complicated science concepts.
By: Roger Farr and Jenny Conner (2004)
Students need to think while they are reading. By using modeling, coached practice, and reflection, you can teach your students strategies to help them think while they read and build their comprehension.
By: C.R. Adler (2004)
Comprehension strategies are conscious plans — sets of steps that good readers use to make sense of text. Comprehension strategy instruction helps students become purposeful, active readers who are in control of their own reading comprehension. The seven strategies here appear to have a firm scientific basis for improving text comprehension
By: Akimi Gibson (2004)
This article provides tutors with proven techniques for helping students acquire comprehension skills and strategies. In addition to building background knowledge about comprehension, it looks at six comprehension strategies and activities that support each strategy.
By: Valerie G. Chapman and Diane Sopko (2003)
Combined-text books integrate a story format and an expository or informational format within one book. When used for instruction, combined-text books are best read in layers: illustrations; informational text; narrative text; and additional details, such as sketches and page borders. Addressing various layers individually during read-alouds provides a perfect opportunity to model revisiting text for various purposes.
By: Beth Antunez (2002)
Find out how teachers can play to the strengths and shore up the weaknesses of English Language Learners in each of the Reading First content areas.
By: Texas Education Agency (2002)
Based on research and effective practice, these strategies help students learn how to coordinate and use a set of key comprehension techniques before, during, and after they read a variety of texts.
By: Texas Education Agency (2002)
Effective comprehension instruction is instruction that helps students to become independent, strategic, and metacognitive readers who are able to develop, control, and use a variety of comprehension strategies to ensure that they understand what they read. To achieve this goal, comprehension instruction must begin as soon as students begin to read and it must: be explicit, intensive, and persistent; help students to become aware of text organization; and motivate students to read widely.
By: Texas Education Agency (2002)
How can classroom reading instruction help poor readers — indeed, all students — become more like good readers? Research suggests that the answer may lie in providing students with instruction that both teaches them the comprehension strategies that work so well for good readers and helps them to develop the necessary metacognitive awareness of how and when to use these strategies.
By: Texas Education Agency (2002)
The purpose of reading is comprehension — getting meaning from written text. Find out what else research tells us about the active process of constructing meaning, and how good readers consciously employing comprehension strategies.
By: Judith Gold and Akimi Gibson (2001)
This article discusses the power of reading aloud and goes a step further to discuss the power of thinking out loud while reading to children as a way to highlight the strategies used by thoughtful readers.
By: Michael Pressley (2000)
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.
By: Joanna P. Williams (2000)
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.
By: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (2000)
The National Reading Panel identified three predominant elements to support the development reading comprehension skills: vocabulary instruction, active reading, and teacher preparation to deliver strategy instruction.
By: Learning First Alliance (2000)
Children need strong vocabularies, rich background knowledge, and well-developed comprehension strategies to become successful comprehenders. Learn about effective practices for teaching vocabulary and comprehension.
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