One of the keys to helping struggling readers is to provide them with books that they can and want to read. Fiction for struggling readers must have realistic characters, readable and convincing text, and a sense of the readers’ interests and needs. Non-fiction books, newspapers, magazines, even comic books can hook students on reading.
Learn how to teach children to write informational text through the use of focused read-alouds that include discussions of information book genre elements, features, and organizational structure. See examples of book compositions by second-grade authors that demonstrate how read-alouds can support young writers’ genre knowledge development.
Learn about the strengths and weaknesses of Direct Instruction, a promising reading intervention program evaluated by the American Federation of Teachers in their series “Building on the Best, Learning from What Works.”
There are many people at your child’s school who are there to help your child learn, grow socially and emotionally, and navigate the school environment. Here’s a selected list of who’s who at your school: the teaching and administrative staff as well as organizations at the district level. You might want to keep this list handy all year long.
Most scholars believe that instruction in academic English ’ done early, consistently, and simultaneously across content areas ’ can make a difference in English learners’ ability to understand the core curriculum.
This Bright Ideas article recommends five specific and measurable actions teachers can implement to assist ELL learning in the upcoming year. The resource section has links to helpful articles and websites for further support.
This comprehensive study identified interventions that improved students’ performance in six language and literacy domains— language, phonological awareness, print knowledge, decoding, early writing, and general literacy.
Effective school reading programs in schools share certain characteristics, from sound methods and materials to quality professional development and administrative practices. Learn about eight features of research-based school reading programs.
Comprehension is the reason for reading. If readers can read the words but do not understand or connect to what they are reading, they are not really reading. Good readers are both purposeful and active, and have the skills to absorb what they read, analyze it, make sense of it, and make it their own.
Speech recognition, also referred to as speech-to-text or voice recognition, is technology that recognizes speech, allowing voice to serve as the “main interface between the human and the computer.” This Info Brief discusses how current speech recognition technology facilitates student learning, as well as how the technology can develop to advance learning in the future.
Researchers have identified a number of factors important to reading motivation including self-concept and value of reading, choice; time spent talking about books, types of text available, and the use of incentives.
Eli, a young boy, tells us what it is like to have dysgraphia. Regina Richards, a well-known expert on dysgraphia (and Eli’s mom), explains how to help children who struggle with the challenges Eli describes. Practical techniques discussed include POWER: Prepare, Organize, Write, Edit, Revise.
Developmentally appropriate research-based literacy instruction in the primary grades includes attention to a variety of areas. Learn what reading instruction looks like in such areas as word identification, writing, and spelling in this overview.
