The twenty-first century Reading War is, in fact, nothing new, but some of the details are unique to our current culture driven by social media. This volume seeks to examine the current Reading War in the context of the historical recurrence of public and political debates around student reading abilities and achievement. Grounded in a media…

Effective fluency instruction should focus on reading with understanding, rather than simply reading quickly or expressively. This article outlines three research-based instructional approaches that assist students in developing accurate, automatic word recognition and prosody; at the same time, they ensure learners attend to the text's meaning as…

Humans are fragile beings easily influenced by the verbal behaviors of others. Spoken words can have a multitude of effects on an individual, and the phrases and statements teachers use in their classrooms on a daily basis have the potential to be either detrimental or inspirational. As increasing numbers of students arrive at schools from broken…

Expeditionary Learning (EL) is a growing provider of curriculum and professional development services to teachers and school leaders. The EL model combines an interdisciplinary instructional approach with ongoing training and coaching for teachers and school leaders. The EL curriculum uses an experiential approach in which students conduct…

This document is comprised of four consecutive issues (Winter 1998-Fall 1999) of a newsletter published quarterly to provide information on current research and practice to early childhood professionals teaching in the primary grades in Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, and Montana. The winter 1998 issue focuses on retention in the early grades,…