This guidance report offers early years professionals seven practical evidence-based recommendations to provide every child--but particularly those from disadvantaged homes--with a high quality and well-rounded grounding in early literacy, language and communication. One recommendation focuses on the importance of high quality interactions between…

Offers suggestions for making newspaper activities part of the reading curriculum. (FL)

Assignment sheets that structure reading activities can be helpful in reading instruction for gifted children. The guides include activity suggestions before the reading (mostly vocabulary), during the reading (questions at the literal and inferential level), and after the reading (questions focusing on analysis, synthesis, and other higher mental…

Defines self-directive dramatization as activities in which children direct themselves in acting out characters in stories they have read and suggests that such activities can influence children's self-concepts and their attitudes toward reading. (FL)

Describes an inductive categorization strategy for helping children develop word recognition ability. Closes with theoretical and interpretive comments that support the use of the word sort teaching strategy. (FL)

Presents ideas for using students' names as springboards for vocabulary or reading instruction. (FL)

Noting that students who learn strategies to make and complete analogies benefit in many ways, the introduction to this workbook for grades three through five defines analogies as comparisons between seemingly unrelated items. It notes that comparing an unfamiliar item to an item that is more familiar increases understanding. In addition, the…

Noting that students who learn strategies to make and complete analogies benefit in many ways, the introduction to this workbook for grades six through eight defines analogies as comparisons between seemingly unrelated items. It notes that comparing an unfamiliar item to an item that is more familiar increases understanding. In addition, the…

Presents twelve activities designed to convince the student that reading can be fun and not boring. (JM)

Suggests using an ultraviolet or "black" light as a tool for storytelling and reading aloud, and describes four black light activities which bring an extra measure of excitement to books. (JM)

Explains how newspapers published on students' birthdays can be used in the classroom to stimulate reading and suggests 25 learning activities using the newspaper. (KS)

This article introduces Making and Writing Words Using Letter Patterns (MWW-LP), a variation of the popular Making Words word study and spelling instructional activity. Research indicates that proficient readers use knowledge of letter patterns such as onsets, rimes, and affixes to decode unknown words. The MWW-LP activity uses such letter…

Provides suggestions for activating prior knowledge, getting children to be aware when their comprehension is lagging, and tying it all together at the end. (FL)