Students are regularly expected to engage with connected text during the school day. However, for some readers, these demands can be overwhelming, particularly when reading fluency is still developing. In this article, we highlight Synchronous Paired Oral Reading Techniques (SPORT) as one approach that teachers can use to help striving readers…

Transnational children's texts can bring communities together, forcing us to reflect critically on our past, present, and future, and pushing us to action. In this column, we propose that texts that do this form of activist work are "cuentos combativos" and that all teachers and researchers can leverage "cuentos combativos" for…

Many teachers tirelessly grapple with topics of text selection, evaluation, and comprehension--examining elements of diversity, quality, and kid appeal to empower teachers to select titles for classrooms through a critical lens--under a mandated scripted curriculum. The purpose of this column is to explore and draw upon teachers' knowledge around…

Prosody is an important indicator of reading development, but many teachers are unclear about how it can help students improve their reading fluency. Beyond demonstrating expressive or flowing reading, specific components of "reading prosody" can distinctly reveal how well word recognition and comprehension processes coalesce, providing…

Vocabulary knowledge plays a critical role in supporting text comprehension and broader learning across the school day. While school offers opportunities to build vocabulary knowledge, studies have shown that very little time is devoted to vocabulary instruction at the elementary level. This may be, in part, because educators commonly report being…

One strategy for developing science literacy and scientific literacy in young children is through published trade books. To better understand how science literacy and scientific literacy may be represented in elementary classrooms, we investigated children's books that explore science concepts. Specifically, we examined high-quality science trade…

As more challenges occur to erase LGBTQ identities in the classroom, it is essential for educators to learn ways to become more inclusive. Using children's literature is a powerful way to include and center all identities. In this article, we share the journey and work of 1 s-grade teacher on a path to become more LGBTQ-inclusive with read-alouds.

This article describes the Four-N-Framework for responding to readers through focused and intentional individualized dynamic formative feedback. Making ongoing informed data-driven instructional decisions and effective actionable feedback supports students' reading growth and fosters lifelong readers. This easy-to-implement process can support…

This article puts forth a multilingual perspective on reading to counter the prevailing monolingualism that dominates reading instruction. First, it brings theories together to develop a cohesive understanding of teaching reading with emergent bilinguals at the center. Second, it illuminates ways educators can design reading instruction, which is…

Over the past two years, as a professor of reading education, I have listened to, collaborated, and met with various PreK-12 educators virtually and in person. I collected questions, comments, successes, and challenges related to the ongoing transitions and demands of this post-pandemic era on teachers, students, and parents. The topics of student…

We are in the midst of yet another battle in the reading wars. Before the fog of war overcomes us yet again, we should recall recent history where an attempt at a resolution--Reading First--mostly left ambiguity in its wake. Moving forward, there is a foundation upon which to build. But doing so will require learning from the past, addressing…

Helping students learn how to interpret themes in text can be, without a doubt, challenging. Students benefit from knowing different aspects/textual elements within stories to look for when constructing themes. In this teaching and learning guide, we share seven concrete ways to help students anchor their theme thinking. These seven elements can…

In this article, the author presents a teaching prompt--Write-it-Out--to instruct readers who seemingly guess at words with no or limited use of grapheme-phonemic correspondences to recontextualize word-solving into writing. Through the nature of this prompt, slowing down the pace of solving words on the run with writing also reciprocally builds…

Some readers thrive more than others because they are more actively involved in their learning. All students can become active participants in their learning through quality teacher prompting. In this article, teachers will learn how to promote emergent learners' active participation as they decode and comprehend, while problem-solving unknown…

The recent development of ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence application that mimics human language, has many educators questioning its place in the classroom. This article provides suggestions for instructional uses of ChatGPT in the literacy classroom so that teachers can empower students to use this tool safely and effectively for learning.