This teaching tip outlines a comprehension strategy designed to support early primary students in reading to learn while learning to read. The strategy is born of the authors' classroom practices and is designed to support young children in reading and understanding informational texts by facilitating close interactions between text and reader.…

The Common Core Standards for the English Language Arts (CCSS) provide explicit guidelines matching grade-level bands (e.g., 2-3, 4-5) with targeted text complexity levels. The CCSS staircase accelerates text expectations for students across Grades 2-12 in order to close a gap in the complexity of texts typically used in high school and those of…

Comprehension strategy instruction has been widely studied in the past 10 years. We now know that students who actively engage and interact with text using particular cognitive strategies are more likely to understand and remember more of what they have read. Students who use these strategies are able to access knowledge that is outside the realm…

Knowledge of patterned books provides the reader with a framework of mutually understood rules between the author and the reader. This schema of rules guides the reader to predict the story grammar and the progression of the text that has been recorded by the author. These patterns act as an additional cueing system and aid special needs students…

Describes how the authors establish the groundwork and the practice of literature circles in their primary classrooms. Describes how they redefine reading to allow all students to think of themselves as readers from the start. Describes the crucial role of talking and listening. Describes what shape literature circles take. Notes that this kind of…

Offers guidelines for using literature in the primary classroom. Shares the experiences of first graders with the book "Owl Moon." Notes that it is important to retain the essence of the story--to demonstrate for young readers how readers connect with books. (MG)

This paper explains two observation guides that teachers can use to describe emergent reading behaviors among young children during the children's interactions with familiar storybooks. The guides are derived from a review of research and focus on independent and assisted interactions. When observing children's independent interactions with…

Third-graders can use read-aloud time to hone critical and creative reading skills by getting involved in a story. Children relate book experiences to their own experiences by evaluating characters' responses, recognizing characters' motivation, and adjusting interpretations. (BB)

This article describes how content area readers/informational books can be used in beginning reading programs to support both literacy development and the learning of national standards-based content. Benefits from using content area readers/informational books with young readers include: (1) Certain children, often boys, are far more excited by…

Describes theoretical and practical problems facing the field of early reading, examining: readers and texts (reader processes, text difficulty, linguistic and cultural knowledge, and unique learners); home and school (home-school match, communities and reading, preschools as contexts for reading acquisition, and best practices); and policy and…