This article describes an unexpected playground experience that occurred between the author, a reading educator and former middle grades teacher, and his six-year-old granddaughter. The experience became the inspiration and impetus to provide an introduction to, and a rationale for, the concept of text clusters to middle grades teachers. The…

More than two-thirds of middle school students do not read proficiently. Research has shown that targeted interventions using explicit instruction methods can improve reading outcomes for struggling readers. A central feature of explicit instruction is the systematic implementation of instructional interactions, but it is not clear what specific…

Syntactic knowledge, the implicit and explicit knowledge of syntax, is a necessary--but often overlooked--component of proficient reading (e.g., Deacon & Kieffer, 2018). Though some research exists on effective syntactic instruction, such as sentence combining (Neville & Searls, 1985; Wilkinson & Patty, 1993), researchers have called…

Background/purpose. Character education has become a central focus in Indonesia's national education policy. However, conventional teaching methods still fail to address the diverse learning styles of students. The Multiple Intelligences (MI) approach offers a promising alternative to improving reading literacy and encouraging character…

This article explores how the Jewish tradition of l'dor va-dor (from generation to generation) is reflected in the readers/writers workshop model, highlighting the role of mentorship and introducing the 6M framework to support student-centered reading and writing instruction.

Despite the importance of reading comprehension, many secondary students with Intellectual Disabilities (ID) struggle with this skill. Students with ID also experience greater challenges in foundational literacy skills (i.e., skills related to phonological awareness) and the cognitive skills temporal processing and nonverbal reasoning (Van…

Mind maps are the most effective tools to improve learners' reading comprehension skills, as learners can detect the relationships and connections between ideas, figures, examples and embedded details through these maps. The present study aimed to identify the impact of using mind maps on improving the reading comprehension of eighth grade…

Meta-strategic learning refers to a mediated construction of knowledge regarding when, why and how to apply a group of strategies for accomplishing cognitive tasks. This study examined the effect of meta-strategic learning of structure strategies on reading comprehension of expository texts by secondary school students under whole-class…

Providing independent reading opportunities is a critical learning practice often overlooked in many classrooms. This study utilizes expectancy-value theory to explore the motivational beliefs of eight 4th to 8th-grade teachers regarding providing in-class independent reading opportunities. Through semi-structured interviews, data reveal that…

Proficient reading requires the ability to analyze words for various properties, including pronunciation, meaning, and syntactical function. However, most instruction in word analysis is limited to phonics instruction provided in the early elementary grades. For older students, whose words largely center units of meaning, or morphemes, early…

Embodied cognition and movement-integration (MI) in classroom settings attract the interest of researchers and practitioners. The purpose of this six-week pilot study was to investigate the feasibility and acceptability of a MI approach (PunMoves) focusing on the comprehension of punctuation marks in reading, which was implemented in 12…

This illustrative case study investigation was conducted to learn how Indonesian in-service teachers perceived teaching reading in a digital era and the challenges they encountered. The data were submitted by a total of 30 teachers who participated in the subject post for Indonesian junior high schools. Data collection strategies include…

Inferencing is an important and complex process required for successful reading comprehension. Previous research has suggested instruction in inferencing is effective at improving reading comprehension. However, varying definitions of inferencing is likely impacting how inferencing instruction is implemented in practice and inferencing ability is…

This action research case study examined how adolescent male readers in reading intervention classes experienced and identified themselves as readers. Additionally, this case study was a self-study in that explored how I, a reading specialist, fostered student reading engagement and reader identity development. This study explored the research…

In this article, the author argues that living literacies--relational, embodied forms of literacy engagement--are an integral component of literacy engagement and hold the potential to disrupt and reconfigure the power structures embedded within schooled literacy. Drawing on affect theory and rhizomatic theory, the author analyzes youths' literacy…