Teachers in any discipline where reading matters should practice a robust scaffolding pedagogy to teach critical reading, in contrast to the more common but less direct approaches that often leave students to learn or not learn these skills themselves. In this essay, I describe how to adapt established methods for teaching writing (including…

This paper explores a suite of close writing practices and exercises that ask students to attend closely to language at the level of morpheme, word, line, sentence, or stanza. Close writing aims to move students beyond a conception of reading as mere transaction and technology, while pushing writing pedagogy beyond the development of expository…

The intent of this essay is to provoke thought on how to increase the impact of course readings on individual and group learning. A set of strategies for tapping the generative potential of texts that build on the interpretive insights of Gadamer and Ricoeur is provided. "Generative potential" refers to the ability of a text to generate…

In first-year writing (FYW), instructors want students to understand how reading texts in particular ways affects how and what they learn and, in turn, how and what they might communicate to their own readers. Because students tend to come to FYW predisposed to notice more visual aspects (e.g., headings, bulleted lists) than verbal aspects (e.g.,…

Reading academic hypertext documents in college brings a new level of complexity that changes the definition of college reading and literacy. Knowing how to read these unpredictable, nonlinear texts requires familiarity and practice. The author describes the nature and usefulness of hypertext, reviews the challenges of reading hypertext, and…

Concerns about adolescent literacy continue to be highlighted in regards to the challenges of reading and learning from academic text. Recent efforts to address these concerns have led to an examination of the disciplines and their specialized ways of thinking and using language. In this article I discusses a metalinguistic protocol in a…

The goal of this study was to test the effectiveness of WestEd's Reading Apprenticeship (RA) professional development program on teacher practices and student learning. The professional development is designed to teach high school teachers how to integrate subject-specific literacy instruction into their regular curricula. The CRESST researchers…

Using interviews and 10 weeks of consecutive lesson plans with supporting documentation, the author analyzes four first-year teachers' assigned in-class and out-of-class reading assignments and their choices and uses of reading strategies they learned in their preservice program. (Contains 2 tables.)

Background: Research is proposed for preservice secondary mathematics teachers to develop and use reading strategies in math classrooms. Purpose: to determine if increased instruction on using specific reading strategies in secondary mathematics classrooms significantly impacts a) the type of reading-specific instructional strategies used, b)…

Using a reading lesson designed for advanced university students in Brazil, the author discusses different types of exercises that can help students become more active readers and be more critical about the reading materials. The author distinguishes between passive and active reading tasks and argues that active tasks are more beneficial because…