This article offers a collection of interactive activities that help kids become more involved in the stories that they read.

Research-based reading instruction allows children opportunities to both understand the building blocks and expand their use of language, oral and written. These opportunities are illustrated by classroom activities in these twelve components of reading instruction for grades one through three.

Doing activities with your children allows you to promote their reading and writing skills while having fun at the same time. These activities for pre-readers, beginning readers, and older readers includes what you need and what to do for each one.

Newspapers expand the curriculum with an unlimited amount of information to use as background for learning activities. Discover new ways to use the newspaper in your language arts studies, with these activities from the Newspaper Association of America.

Letter writing can be fun, help children learn to compose written text, and provide handwriting practice — and letters are valuable keepsakes. This guide was written for England's "Write a Letter Week" and contains activities to help children ages 5–9 put pen to paper and make someone’s day with a handwritten letter.

Encourage students to become better listeners and readers through audiobooks.

In teaching second language learners how to speak and read English, it is important not to neglect their writing development. Here are some strategies for teaching ESL children to become writers.

Teaching vocabulary is complex. What words are important for a child to know and in what context? In this excerpt from Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction, the authors consider what principles might be used for selecting which words to explicitly teach.

Many teachers feel that they do not have enough time in the school day to work one-on-one with every student. Classwide Peer Tutoring is a way for all students to get one-on-one help and enough time to practice and learn. This brief looks at what peer tutoring is, what studies show about the effectiveness of peer tutoring, and how parents and teachers can support the practice in the classroom.

Literacy activities can take on a new meaning when students are reading and writing about their own community. Children learn the true value of print when they document the oral histories of the elders in their town.

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.

Learn about “computer-assisted instruction” (CAI) and the ways in which it enhances teacher instruction.

Creating podcasts in the classroom has many educational benefits, including strengthening skills in research, writing, and collaboration — and podcasting is easy to do. This article walks you through the steps of preproduction, recording, postproduction, and publishing.

Differentiating instruction is more complex than just providing different students with different learning experiences. Learn about this distinction by reading classroom examples that contrast differentiated literacy instruction with simply different instruction.

Differentiated instruction is based on the premise that instructional approaches should vary and be adapted in relation to individual and diverse students. This brief looks at how differentiation strategies applied to reading can be designed to help students learn a range of skills including, phonics, comprehension, fluency, word prediction, and story prediction.

Differentiated instruction, also called differentiation, is a process through which teachers enhance learning by matching student characteristics to instruction and assessment. Writing instruction can be differentiated to allow students varying amounts of time to complete assignments, to give students different writing product options, and to teach skills related to the writing process.

Despite the need to use and develop their English-language proficiency, English-language learners (ELLs) are often quiet during classroom discussions. The Response Protocol was developed to help teachers elicit and support the oral interactions of ELL students.

Children can learn about family heritage at the same time they are improving their literacy skills. Using family-based writing projects, you can build a connection with parents, and help children see the value in their own heritage and in the diversity around them.

It's important to recognize what good schools look like. The quality of your child's school has a huge impact on his or her learning.

When it comes to reading, the nine months of first grade are arguably the most important in a student's schooling.

Here are some concrete techniques that children can use to study spelling. This article also shares guidelines teachers and students should keep in mind, because practice makes permanent.

Many students with learning or reading disabilities find homework challenging. Here are five research-based strategies that teachers can use to help students.

The best strategy for developing reading fluency is to provide your students with many opportunities to read the same passage orally several times. To do this, you should first know what to have your students read. Second, you should know how to have your students read aloud repeatedly.