Reading comprehension is the goal of reading, and making inferences is vital. Authors usually expect readers to make multiple types of inferences, including anaphoric, background knowledge, predictive, and retrospective. Common core assessments include all of these, yet instructional materials focus mostly on only one type, retrospective. This…

This article presents effective strategies for educators of young children to promote children's mathematical communications, which include think-aloud during individual work time, utilizing reasoning and proof questions, and questioning back to children.

If your professional learning seems stalled, maybe you could put yourself and your colleagues in the driver's seat of professional development. The authors describe a professional learning approach that gives teachers both a say in what they focus their learning on and a chance to practice and refine teaching strategies that they hope to…

In this article, the author presents an ideal question that can take an art teacher and his or her students through all the levels of thought in Bloom's taxonomy--perfect for modeling the think-aloud process: "How many people is the artist inviting into this picture?" This great question always helps the students look beyond the obvious and dig…

Inference generation makes a strong, unique contribution to reading comprehension. Young children engage in many of the same inference generation processes as sophisticated readers. This article discusses instructional practices that can be used in prekindergarten through grade two to help children think beyond the words of the text. Suggestions…

Metacognition is a type of thinking in which learners think about their own cognitive processes. Because it transcends disciplines and grade levels, metacognition is useful in many educational settings and can be transferred from the music classroom to other subject areas. Music educators can promote metacognition by designing and implementing…

Elicitation techniques are a category of research tasks that use visual, verbal, or written stimuli to encourage participants to talk about their ideas. These tasks are particularly useful for exploring topics that may be difficult to discuss in formal interviews, such as those that involve sensitive issues or rely on tacit knowledge. Elicitation…

Findings derived from self-reported, structured survey questionnaires are commonly used in evaluation and applied research to inform policy-making and program decisions. Although there are a variety of issues related to the quality of survey evidence (e.g., sampling precision), the validity of response processes--how respondents process thoughts…

The use of graphic poetry in classrooms is encouraged as a way to engage students and motivate them to read and write poetry. This article discusses how graphic poetry can help students with their comprehension of poetry while tapping into popular culture. It is organized around three main sections--reading graphic poetry, writing graphic poetry,…

Reading is a critical skill for student success in school and postschool opportunities. Although a number of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) will develop the decoding skills necessary to read text, many will continue to struggle with reading comprehension. No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education…

The purpose of this article is to present Questioning as Thinking (QAT), a metacognitive framework that helps teachers and students focus on performance. QAT combines components of three widely-used strategies: Think-Alouds, Question Answer Relationships (QAR), and Self-Questioning. Together, these three strategies give students and teachers the…

"Contextualization", the act of placing events in a proper context, allows teachers to weave a rich, dynamic portrait of a historical period for their students. As teachers strive to identify enduring themes and patterns, they must teach students to appreciate the particular policies, institutions, worldviews, and circumstances that shape a given…