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.

What should fluency instruction look like? And, what can teachers do to help students whose fluency is far behind their peers'? This article should help practitioners use of fluency-based assessments and select instructional practices.

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.

Teachers do their best to improve students’ fluency, but sometimes the information they have to work with is incomplete and, therefore, leads them down the wrong path. For example, silent reading or 'Round Robin' reading seem like good ways to improve fluency. But, in fact, increasing fluency requires more practice, more support, and more guided oral reading than either of these strategies can deliver.

Many young readers are puzzled by the rules and exceptions of spelling. Research has shown, however, that learning to spell and learning to read rely on much of the same underlying knowledge. Read this article to learn more about the relationships between letters and sounds and how a proper understanding of spelling mechanics can lead to improved reading.

These six short video clips give you the chance to watch and learn effective classroom-based assessment strategies. The video clips are from Reading Rockets' PBS television series Launching Young Readers.

The following are sample charts you can use when assessing students informally in the classroom. Most of the assessments here should be given one-on-one.

Creating a word family chart with the whole class or a small group builds phonemic awareness, a key to success in reading. Students will see how words look alike at the end if they sound alike at the end - a valuable discovery about our alphabetic writing system. They'll also see that one little chunk (in this case -an) can unlock lots of words!

Activities that stimulate phonemic awareness in preschool and elementary school children are one sure way to get a child ready for reading! Here are eight of them from expert Marilyn Jager Adams.

Alphabetics is a term for the letter-sound elements of learning to read, including phonemic awareness and phonics. In this summary, find out what practices for teaching alphabetics have been proven effective by research.

These four short video clips give you the chance to watch and learn effective phonemic awareness activities. The video clips are from Reading Rockets' PBS television series Launching Young Readers.

Phonics instruction is a way of teaching reading that stresses the acquisition of letter-sound correspondences and their use in reading and spelling.

These six short video clips give you the chance to watch and learn effective phonics activities. The video clips are from Reading Rockets' PBS television series Launching Young Readers.

How can you help kids develop print awareness? Here are some sample questions and prompts you can use before, during, and after a read aloud activity to help children activate basic knowledge about print and books.

Children with print awareness can begin to understand that written language is related to oral language. Children who lack print awareness are unlikely to become successful readers. Indeed, children's performance on print awareness tasks is a very reliable predictor of their future reading achievement.

Print awareness is a child's earliest understanding that written language carries meaning. The foundation of all other literacy learning builds upon this knowledge. The following are guidelines for teachers in how to promote print awareness and a sample activity for assessing print awareness in young children.

The following are answers to frequent questions teachers have about fluency instruction.

This article answers four common questions teachers have about vocabulary instruction, including what words to teach and how well students should know vocabulary words.

The following are answers to frequent questions teachers have about writing instruction.

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.

Screening, diagnosing, and progress monitoring are essential to making sure that all students become fluent readers — and the words-correct per-minute (WCPM) procedure can work for all three. Here's how teachers can use it to make well-informed and timely decisions about the instructional needs of their students.

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.

Hearing the difference between similar sounding words such as grow and glow is easy for most children, but not for all children.

Children must understand how speech sounds work to be ready for instruction in reading and writing. There are many activities that you can do with your students to help them increase their knowledge of speech sounds and their relationship to letters.

These four short video clips give you the chance to watch and learn effective speech sound activities. The video clips are from Reading Rockets' PBS television series Launching Young Readers.