As evidenced by national data, a large proportion of students in middle school, content area classrooms in the United States (U.S.) may be considered developing readers. Evidence-based literacy practices and explicit instructional practices can support these students' literacy development. Yet, research suggests that teachers often miss…

Composing narrative text is complex, requiring development of knowledge of genre specific and general writing knowledge, and the ability to sequence and convey real or imagined experiences, reactions, and an effective ending. Teachers, however, typically do not receive adequate professional learning needed for effective instruction in narrative…

Many middle school students perform below grade-level standards in reading (National Center for Education Statistics, Washington, 2019), and recent observation studies demonstrate middle school teachers' limited use of reading comprehension practices within content area instruction (e.g., science and social studies; as reported by Greenleaf (in:…

Literacy standards (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers in Common core state standards: English language arts standards, 2010) and best practices from Institute of Education Sciences practice guides (e.g., Baker et al. in Teaching academic content and literacy to English learners in…

This study reports on the development of an assessment to measure bilingual adolescents' knowledge of polysemous vocabulary and explores the contribution of polysemous word knowledge to reading comprehension among those students. Spanish-English bilingual students in seventh grade (n = 107) completed a battery of standardized reading and language…

Although several longitudinal studies have confirmed that need-supportive teacher behaviour shapes intrinsic motivation in school, longitudinal studies on its role for intrinsic reading motivation are lacking. To fill in this gap, this study investigated whether changes in selected aspects of student-perceived teacher need-supportive behaviour in…

Concerns about the negative effects of digitalization on students' reading comprehension, empirically backed by recent meta-analyses, question the efficacy of digital tools in the language arts classroom. By analyzing data from 4 and 8th grade US students from NAEP 2017, we aimed to test the generalization of the negative association between…

Teachers' knowledge of reading comprehension processes is under-researched relative to teachers' knowledge of word identification and phonological awareness. In this study, sixty-two pre- and inservice upper-elementary and middle school English language arts, science, and social studies teachers completed in-depth interview protocols eliciting…

Argumentative writing has long been considered an essential skill for disciplinary learning. For researchers and curriculum developers to develop ecologically valid instructional approaches to argumentative writing, a pivotal prerequisite is the understanding of how teachers use various instructional methods in tandem to teach different…

Writing skills are crucial for high school students' academic, social, and professional success in Brazil. Developing the ability to write, however, is a demanding process that requires considerable support from teachers. The purpose of this study was to survey the population of high school language arts teachers in two Brazilian states about…

The purpose of this mainly descriptive study was to investigate teachers' perceptions about how they teach writing as well as their beliefs about preparation and efficacy to teach this skill. It also examined if preparation and efficacy beliefs along with teaching experience (years teaching the language arts) predicted teachers' reported writing…

A random sample of 782 grades 1 through 3 Chinese language arts teachers in Taiwan were surveyed about how they taught writing and their beliefs about writing. The underlying dimensions of teachers' reported writing practices and beliefs were established through factor analyses. Thirty-seven percent of the teachers reported they taught writing…

A widespread instructional practice in the teaching of argumentative writing is the use of writing samples or models during instructional conversations about what counts as "good argumentative writing." In this article, we focus on a set of lessons in a high school English language arts classroom in order to gain insight into how a…

The goal of this study was to define the construct and establish the validity of disciplinary literacy, which has recently gained attention from the implementation of the Common Core State Standards (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers in Common Core State Standards for English…

This study examined the nature and frequency of error in high school native English speaker (L1) and English learner (L2) writing. Four main research questions were addressed: Are there significant differences in students' error rates in English language arts (ELA) and social studies? Do the most common errors made by students differ in ELA…