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.
Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM), which teachers use on an ongoing basis to track students’ progress toward annual goals, offers a number of benefits to parents and students, as well as teachers.
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.
According to research, some instructional methods for teaching reading are more effective than others. Find out what the National Reading Panel’s review of the research revealed about best practices in reading instruction.
Different book leveling systems each have unique ways of describing the age- and grade-level appropriateness of books. This chart provides equivalency information across six leveling systems: Basal level/PALS, Guided Reading, DRA, Rigby PM, Reading Recovery, and Lexile.
All kindergarten, first-grade, and second-grade teachers — as well as reading interventionists — should teach students to keep their eyes on the words on the page so that they do not have to later struggle with breaking a habit that hampers effective, efficient reading.
Many students with learning or reading disabilities find homework challenging. Here are five research-based strategies that teachers can use to help students.
Much vocabulary is learned without formal teaching. We gain words from conversation, observation, television/media, and reading. However, research shows that explicitly teaching vocabulary can measurably improve reading comprehension — if we teach the right words well enough. Here are five key principles to effective vocabulary instruction.
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.
Your child may be at a school where they are using an approach called “flipped classroom” or “flipped lesson.” Find out more about the concept, and three ways that you can support flipped learning at home.
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.
“Unexpected schools” — high-performing and rapidly improving schools with large populations of children of color and children living in poverty — demonstrate that they can overcome barriers of poverty and discrimination by making improvement a shared task rather than a solitary one. Many of these schools have achieved academic success by systematically building caring relationships and tackling problems together — unpacking standards, mapping out the curriculum, and developing lessons and common assessments together.
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.
1 in 5 students have learning and attention issues. An extensive literature review of empirical studies revealed three critical mindsets and eight key practices that can improve outcomes for students with learning and attention issues — and all students.
A third grade teacher describes her approach to helping students comprehend informational text. Her strategies include teaching text features and creating text-dependent questions for close reading.
There are a variety of grouping formats that are effective for teaching reading to students with learning disabilities: whole class, small group, pairs, and one-on-one. Learn more about the research and implications for practice for using each format in the general education classroom.
The text feature walk guides students in the reading of text features in order to access prior knowledge, make connections, and set a purpose for reading expository text. Results from a pilot study illustrate the benefits of using the strategy, and practical suggestions for implementation are offered.
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.
Handwriting is a complex skill that is not often taught directly. It is not unusual for some students with disabilities to have difficulty with handwriting. These students may also have sensory integration problems. Handwriting Club is a format that provides direct instruction in handwriting combined with sensory integration activities. This article describes all the steps and materials necessary to organize and conduct a handwriting club.
An almost universal habit that struggling readers exhibit is looking up from the words when reading. Learn the three primary reasons why students look up as they read, and then find out how to respond to each case in the most effective way.
High-leverage practices (HLPs) and evidence-based practices (EBPs) when used together can become powerful tools for improving outcomes for students with disabilities and those who struggle. This brief shows the promise of these practices in advancing educator preparation and practice.
Three research based practices help students with learning disabilities improve their writing. Read this interview with Steve Graham, author of Writing Next: Effective Strategies to Improve Writing of Adolescents in Middle and High School who explains how you can help your students succeed in communicating through the written word.
