Elementary school multicultural reading curricula include characters with diverse proper names, which are often unfamiliar and differ phonetically from students' native language. These names could impact reading outcomes by increasing students' cognitive load and/or creating cognitive disfluency. In Study 1, students in grades 1 through 2 read a…

This study examines how pre-readers' comprehension of story read-alouds is affected when story goal structure deviates from the canonical event. Forty children (30-59 months) were read stories in which there was either a match or mismatch between story and event goal structure. Children's content comprehension scores for the matched story (M =…

In today's multimodal landscape, coding has a space in the elementary literacy curriculum. Coding and literacy have many parallels, which are described in further detail. The author also explains why coding should be integrated into the primary grades and the steps that teachers can take to implement coding in the literacy curriculum. The free app…

Reading is seen by many as an essential ingredient for learning to write. Is the relationship between reading and writing reciprocal? Does the path to better reading involve becoming a good writer? The answer to these questions presents a paradox. One does not have to learn to write in order to learn to read, as learning how to write or type words…

Despite efforts toward literacy reform, reading growth commonly flatlines in the secondary years. In "Literacy Reframed," the authors offer a game-changing new way to think about--and teach--literacy at all levels. You will gain a dynamic path forward for creating classrooms that fully support students on their literacy journeys and…

How can you encourage students to accept varieties of English from around the world? This Reflective Question and many others await your discussion and analysis in this revised edition of TESOL Press's best-selling "Teaching Speaking," which explores different approaches to teaching reading in second language classrooms. This volume…

Quality instruction and teacher effectiveness matter, but there is limited research to inform how to best support teachers in their efforts to boost student reading outcomes (Clark et al., 2016). Existing research suggests that literacy coaching can be effective it is (a) content specific (e.g., coaching on a specific program) and (b) focused on…

According to I.S. P. Nation (2009, 66), four conditions must be present for an activity to be categorized as fluency development: (1) learners' attention must be focused on the meaning of the text they are reading rather than its grammatical or structural features; (2) here should be no new vocabulary and few irregular language features in the…

Despite a growing research base that explores motivational constructs in reading and their relationship to achievement, nuanced questions remain. The present study examines the complex relationships among attitudes, proficiency, grade, and gender. Attitudes were differentiated by purpose (recreational vs. academic) and medium (digital vs. print),…

Although readers theater has traditionally been recommended as a method for improving reading fluency, this 18-week quasi-experimental study examined the effects of a readers theater instructional protocol that updates and expands on traditional approaches by adding specific tasks that engage students in various reading comprehension and…

The purpose of the present study is to determine if there is a relationship between oral narrative production and the reading comprehension of expository text. The researcher measured both overall and component scores for expository text comprehension and oral narrative production ability of 40 typically-developing fifth grade students. Findings…

This study addressed the concept of reading instructional level. First, we reviewed the history of the concept, including some recent criticisms of its validity (Schwanenflugel & Knapp, 2017; Shanahan, 2014). Next, we examined, from an instructional-level perspective, the oral reading performance of 248 third graders. We divided the sample…

The aim of the present study was to determine the efficacy of a small-group reading instruction program that was delivered over two school terms to Australian students in Years 3 through 6. A large cohort (n = 239) of primary school children was assessed on their literacy skills before and after receiving 'MacqLit', a phonics-based program…

Increasing young children's vocabulary remains one of the most challenging areas of early literacy instruction. Progress has been made in identifying techniques that, while often complex, work to implement routinely. This study examines the effects of an easy-to-implement technique, say-tell-do-play (STDP), that integrates proven "active…

Direct Instruction (DI), commercially marketed by McGraw-Hill as Reading Mastery and Corrective Reading, is a bundle of highly scripted reading programs emphasizing phonics and phonemic awareness. This assessment considers 40 recently published studies on DI in order to consider the program's aims and efficacy as a means of teaching reading. Our…