Drama has the potential to enrich and enliven established approaches to literacy learning, engaging students and expanding their possibilities for meaning-making. Drama-rich pedagogy is well-established as an effective tool in supporting language and literacy development. However, research to date has not explored the possibilities of using drama…

This study examined the effectiveness of Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) to improve students' ability to write expository essays after reading social studies text. Third-grade general education teachers (N = 14) were randomly assigned by clusters to SRSD or a business as usual control condition. One hundred and eighty consented students…

The elementary grades provide a rich context for literacy and science learning. Reading, writing, and talk support students' conceptual understanding of and engagement with science. The authors provide theoretical and research evidence to support the teaching of five instructional strategies that can facilitate literacy and science learning in…

The effects of preteaching key words on fluency in connected text were examined with three third-grade general education participants. Researchers used a multiple base-line design (i.e., Baseline and Wordlist Intervention) and found that preteaching increased fluency in connected text written above the participant's instructional level of reading…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) lays out "a vision of what it means to be a literate person in the twenty-first century." Among educators, conversations about reading and writing have shifted to reflect the CCSS emphasis on informational, technical, opinion, and other non-narrative forms. Yet, these standards also demand that…

Children love to learn about new topics and share what they have discovered with their teachers, families, and friends. The authors designed the "Book Bag Buddies" project to give their third-grade students a chance to channel their enthusiasm and research from science investigations into writing. In this creative project, students integrated…

Beginning in third grade, Pennsylvania students are required to take the Pennsylvania State Standardized Assessment (PSSA), which presents multiple-choice mathematics questions and open-ended mathematics problems. Consistent with the Communication Standard of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, while solving the open-ended problems,…

Teachers working with emergent bilinguals face difficult dilemmas. Students who do not receive rigorous content instruction fail to acquire academic language. However, if students do not understand the content or cannot participate in content lessons, they cannot be expected to learn the academic information and the language associated with it.…