How can we supplement the limited time available for vocabulary instruction while motivating students to attend to the words they are learning? As a part of an academic word vocabulary intervention, the authors challenged sixth-grade students to find their words in the world around them.
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.
In this webcast, Robin Scarcella provides an overview of academic language instruction for English language learners, as well as teaching strategies, activity ideas, and recommended resources.
This influential 1998 report was developed by The Committee for the Prevention of Reading Difficulties in Young Children, established by the National Academy of Sciences to study the comparative effectiveness of interventions for young children who are at risk of having problems learning to read. The primary goal of the project was to translate the research findings about reading into advice and guidance for parents, educators, and others involved in the literacy development of young children.
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.
Schools and teachers play an essential role in identifying students with reading difficulties, including dyslexia. This article offers a 5-step framework for identifying reading difficulties and determining if a student is eligible for special education services under IDEA — including the role of RTI, cognitive processing tests, and other statewide assessments and curriculum-based measures.
A veteran reading teacher shares takeaways from her ‘Teachers as Readers’ learning group. What teachers need: enough time to teach language arts, well-stocked classroom libraries, student input, and meaningful professional development.
Improve instruction and help all students achieve at high levels by making these research-based adjustments to your balanced literacy program. This guidance outlines some of the most common challenges of a balanced literacy model, how they can impede students’ learning, and how you can adapt your reading program to better serve students.
NEA’s Read Across America is an annual reading motivation and awareness program that calls for every child in every community to celebrate reading with the theme: Celebrating a Nation of Diverse Readers.
Student writing can be evaluated on five product factors: fluency, content, conventions, syntax, and vocabulary. Writing samples also should be assessed across a variety of purposes for writing to give a complete picture of a student’s writing performance across different text structures and genres. These simple classroom help in identifying strengths and weaknesses, planning instruction, evaluating instructional activities, giving feedback, monitoring performance, and reporting progress.
Improving the effectiveness of interventions for struggling readers requires a school-level system for early identification of ‘at risk’ students and then providing those students with intensive interventions. Learn from Reading First schools with demonstrated success in reaching struggling readers.
This article discusses current research-supported instructional practices in reading and writing. It also reviews alternatives to ability-achievement discrepancy in identifying students for special education services, as well as introduces the idea that ability-achievement discrepancies should be based on specific cognitive factors that are relevant to specific kinds of learning disabilities rather than Full Scale IQ.
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.
The purpose of this National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities (NJCLD) report is to examine the concepts, potential benefits, practical issues, and unanswered questions associated with responsiveness to intervention (RTI) and learning disabilities (LD). A brief overview of the approach is provided, including attributes, characteristics, and promising features, as well as issues, concerns, unanswered questions, and research needs.
This guidance from the International Reading Association represents a consensus of the thinking of literacy leaders in the field who support thoughtful implementation of the Standards for student literacy achievement. Seven key topics are addressed: use of challenging texts; foundational skills; comprehension; vocabulary; writing; content area literacy; and diverse learners.
It might seem that evaluating information online (just one form of “new literacy”) and reading a book (more of a foundational literacy) are pretty much the same thing. But there are differences that, when brought into the classroom and incorporated into curricula, are enriching the educational experiences of many K-12 students. Many administrators are beginning to recognize the need to revise their districts’ media skills instruction.
Children take their first critical steps toward learning to read and write very early in life. Long before they can exhibit reading and writing production skills, they begin to acquire some basic understandings of the concepts about literacy and its functions.
From decades of research about how young children can best learn to read, we know that there are core skills and cognitive processes that need to be taught. In this basic overview, you’ll find concrete strategies to help children build a solid foundation for reading.
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.
A classroom teacher examines the importance of the nonfiction read aloud as part of ongoing daily instruction, and highlights the need to empower students in both academic achievement, and as life long lovers of nonfiction, through focused informational literature.
Texts that are challenging and that represent a wide range of genres and content areas need to play much bigger roles in comprehension instruction. These texts expose students to rich content and vocabulary and can help build knowledge.
