This study conducted with French-speaking students living near Montréal, Canada, assess if teaching the shared knowledge between reading and writing of informative texts improves reading comprehension in fourth grade (9-10 years old) to a greater extent than teaching that separates reading and writing. Teachers participating in the experiment…

Expository writing--the kind of writing that explains and informs--is essential for success in school and the workplace. Students who cannot write at a competent level struggle in college. With the advent of e-mail and the Internet, an increasing number of jobs require solid writing skills. No matter what path students choose in life, the ability…

Writing may be an especially useful tool for improving the reading comprehension of lower performing readers and students with disabilities. However, it is reasonable to expect that students with poor writing skills in particular, may actually be less adept at using writing to improve their reading skills, and may not be able to do so without…

The purpose of this "teaching tips" article is to describe practical classroom instruction that helps elementary students write expository responses to narrative texts. It focuses on the importance of scaffolded, interactive discussions comprised of a combination of teacher think alouds and similar student responses before, during, and…

This article presents a lesson cycle of activities for teaching reading and writing skills for expository text. The lesson cycle consists of four parts: (1) vocabulary words, (2) text structures, (3) modified sentence completion activity, and (4) rewriting text. Sixth- and seventh-grade summer school students were taught to recognize and…

Explores the physical characteristics of text and how they help the reader, suggesting that if teachers encouraged students to experiment with visible features of written texts, it would increase their ability to understand and use hierarchical and classificatory arrangements in their own writing. (HTH)

Offers a definition of explanatory text, and summarizes research on why abstract concepts and principles are difficult for lay readers to understand. Describes a three-week unit for composition classes on spotting difficult ideas, diagnosing the type of difficulty they pose, and selecting the text features most likely to make them less difficult.…

Provides a rationale for the reading/writing connection through a brief review of research and describes Questions into Paragraphs (QuIP), a three-step procedure designed to improve expository awareness. (FL)

Upper-elementary students encounter a sometimes dizzying array of traditional and nontraditional texts both in and outside of the classroom. This practical handbook helps teachers in grades 4-6 harness the instructional potential of fiction, poetry, and plays; informational texts; graphic novels; digital storytelling; Web-based and multimodal…

Examines why analytical thinking should be a major focus of teaching in the reading and writing classroom. (HOD)

Students will combine reading with descriptive writing in this lesson plan. Embedded in this project are skills, such as compiling, composing, defining, describing, illustrating, rewriting, and validating. During nine 30-minute sessions, students will: read and discuss "The Giver" by Lois Lowry in order to create meaning from the text; read short…

Describes how expository text structure can be taught to students in fifth through ninth grades by using an adapted version of a process developed by McGee and Richgels. Contains daily lesson plans. (FL)

Describes the Cognitive Strategy Instruction in Writing (CSIW) program by discussing: (1) knowledge bases that are useful for expository writing and reading; (2) features of instruction inherent in CSIW that help build knowledge for successful writing and reading; and (3) the effect of CSIW on students' expository writing and reading. (MG)

In response to teachers' requests for specific information about implementing the curriculum in the Expository Writing Program (EWP), this manual presents the instructional methods and materials used during the Teaching Expository Reading and Writing Project. First, the lines of research that formed the basis for the instructional program are…

Accessible and user-friendly, this volume presents evidence-based practices for integrating language and literacy knowledge to enhance children's learning in today's standards-based classrooms. While grounded in theory and research, the book focuses on day-to-day concerns in instruction and intervention, identifying models for effective…