Teachers in the US are increasingly required to use scripted curricula. Such instructional materials often reflect the overwhelming whiteness of the publishing industry through a lack of representation of authors and protagonists outside of white, middle-class normative characters. Implementation of such curricula stands in direct contrast to…

An essential element in teaching children to effectively comprehend text is the use of teacher-led think alouds. The article follows a semester-long project with 31 inservice teachers, who planned, implemented, transcribed, and reflected upon think aloud lessons to build student comprehension. Through multiple exposures to think alouds, teachers…

This article explores the experiences and literacy practices of an adolescent boy enrolled in an academic support class, in which students received an open-ended invitation to respond to S.E. Hinton's novel "The Outsiders" with the software programme Comic Life. In constructing this "telling case", we highlight how traditional…

This paper describes the theoretical framework, as well as the development and testing of the intervention, "Comprehension Tools for Teachers" (CTT), which is composed of eight component interventions targeting malleable language and reading comprehension skills that emerging research indicates contribute to proficient reading for…

This paper describes the theoretical framework, as well as the development and testing of the intervention, Comprehension Tools for Teachers (CTT), which is composed of eight component interventions targeting malleable language and reading comprehension skills that emerging research indicates contribute to proficient reading for understanding for…

Two successful and two struggling beginning readers were studied with the goal of understanding how beginning readers of varying ability levels make sense of instruction in learning to read. Through interviews, classroom observations, and the collection of artifacts from home and school, the author explored meanings constructed by the students…

Many educators are reluctant to use scripted instruction, reporting that scripts are mechanical in nature and only appropriate for low-level skills. This study sought to investigate the impact of a supplemental program's script on the rate of on-task and off-task instructional opportunities offered by the instructor for students to practice the…

This article describes how Readers Theatre was implemented as an engaging means for reading fluency instruction in a second-grade classroom. A weekly Readers Theatre format was utilized over the course of a school year. The format was added to the existing literacy program. Data collected during the school year revealed significant gains in…

Because of difficult academic vocabulary and ambiguous explanations of many concepts, science texts are hard for students to read and understand. To become skilled readers of content material, students need to learn the meanings of the academic science vocabulary. They must also be able to understand the concepts presented in the textbook.…

The new Readers Theatre series features scripts for students in grades 4-8. These original scripts are written for the specific purpose of teaching literary genre. Each book is composed of 24-28 scripts, each of which will be keyed to published books, plays, poems or stories in that genre, encouraging students to read the originals in order to…

Research confirms that reading success starts with young children enjoying library storytimes! Preschoolers' earliest experiences with books and reading are important; parent/caregiver knowledge can build on those experiences, according to research from the National Institute of Child Health & Development, conducted with PLA and ALSC, the…