Learning to read and write starts at a very young age. It is expected that by the time students enter high school, they have developed certain reading and writing skills. However, research has proven many students still struggle with reading and writing skills in high school. Some of these students graduate high school ill-prepared to enter…

The ability to navigate and comprehend online informational text is essential for 21st century learners. It requires orchestrating a mix of old and new reading strategies--and it's easy for teachers and students to feel overwhelmed! This column describes a way of combining student screencasting with Reciprocal Teaching to help students--and…

Tired of hearing about "complex text"? Bothered by the pushy messages about "challenge"? This book is for you! Unlike the many other materials on text complexity, this one focuses on specific comprehension skills that students need in order to really engage with text. This book will help elementary school teachers equip their…

An essential element in teaching children to effectively comprehend text is the use of teacher-led think-alouds. The overarching objective of this study was to explore how to better prepare early career teachers to conduct think-alouds in their classrooms. Data from 31 teachers consisted of (1) questionnaires, (2) lesson plans, (3) lesson…

Close Reading is a strategy that can be used when reading challenging text. This strategy requires teachers to provide scaffolding, and create opportunities for think-alouds and rereading of text in order to help students become active readers who focus on finding text-based support for their answers. In addition, teachers must also be aware of…

This article introduces the Main Idea Strategy, a strategy to improve the performance of students with disabilities and students who perform poorly on reading comprehension tasks. The rationale, research background, and detailed implementation information are presented.

Challenging texts can be made accessible to students by increasing the level of instructional scaffolding. This article describes evidence-based models of shared reading that support reading development across the elementary years. Shared Reading Experience (Holdaway, 1982), Fluency-Oriented Reading Instruction (Stahl & Heubach, 2005),…

This article highlights four cognitive processes key to online reading comprehension and how one might begin to transform existing think-aloud strategy models to encompass the challenges of reading for information on the Internet. Informed by principles of cognitive apprenticeship and an emerging taxonomy of online reading comprehension…

This reading specialist has come up with a strategy to help other CTE instructors map the CTE textbook, so that students can better comprehend the information in them and discover a joy of reading. CTE textbooks present a particular challenge because they are packed with information and can be quite different in structure than texts student have…

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…

Some scholars writing about improving students' reading and integrating reading and writing instruction suggest using think-aloud techniques to teach students reading comprehension skills. Using think-alouds to teach reading comprehension and then the read-aloud protocol technique (which is based on think-alouds) for peer review has two major…

Preschool and kindergarten are transition years in the U.S. educational system, and teaching four-, five- and six-year-olds means living on the margins of one educational community or another. But many preschool and kindergarten teachers like it that way. These teachers get to take ideas from the primary grades and combine them with the…

The author describes how thinking aloud promotes the comprehension of all learners, including those who struggle with reading. These techniques "improved strategy use, promoted self-efficacy, and increased engagement as well as comprehension." Suggestions and methods for supporting think-alouds are provided.

As new information and communication technologies permeate classrooms and libraries, educators have the responsibility to assist students in comprehending and understanding the information that is now available online. How can we instruct students to become skilled, strategic readers when they encounter online texts and hypertextual formats? By…