Though developmental education has long been part of American post-secondary education, reliable evidence of its benefits, especially for ethnic minorities in reading, is lacking (Swail, Cabrera, Lee, & Williams, 2005). Developmental education has costs, however, in added tuition, time-to-completion, and discouragement (Bailey, 2009). Since…

This companion volume to "Collaborative Strategies for Teaching Reading Comprehension," which covered lower grades, completes the educational arc by focusing on adolescent readers in grades 6-12. Drawing on the most current standards from the American Association for School Librarians (AASL) as well as cutting-edge research, this straightforward…

The study examined the impact of the "Project STAR" ("Sit Together and Read") reading program on the literacy skills of preschool students. Researchers randomly assigned 85 preschool classrooms in Ohio to one of three study groups at the start of the 2004-05 or 2005-06 school years: (1) A high-dose intervention group, in which…

The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of a literacy intervention program on student achievement and behavior at two urban high schools. Two groups were identified and the sample was a convenience sample for this study. One group of students is not enrolled in the intervention program, while the other group of students is enrolled in…

This second edition of "New Ways in Teaching Reading" bursts with new activities while retaining many of the features that made the first edition a best seller. The activities chosen for this edition are inspired by state-of-the art trends in teaching reading to English learners. Teachers now find numerous creative, classroom-ready activities in…

In the second edition of "Reading with Meaning," Debbie Miller shares her new thinking about comprehension strategy instruction, the gradual release of responsibility instructional model, and planning for student engagement and independence. It has been ten years since the first edition, in which Debbie chronicled a year in her own classroom.…

The authors share a demonstration lesson for preservice teachers that used chants and cadences to teach content area material across the curriculum. They begin with a rationale for developing and implementing interdisciplinary curriculum and for using chants and cadences, in particular, in content area literacy instruction. Next, they describe the…

From the late sixteenth century, in response to the problem of how best to teach children to read, a variety of texts, such as primers, spellers and readers were produced in England for vernacular instruction. This paper describes how these materials were used by teachers to develop, first, a specific religious understanding according to the…

Students are taught how to read at a very young age, but how well do the students understand what they are reading? Students are taught how to read the words on the paper, but do they comprehend what the words mean when used together? What can educators do to help students think critically and really understand what is being taught? Teachers and…

Especially in a time of economic and social crisis, besides poverty and social segregation, immigrants face an additional difficulty to get integrated in a new society: lack of oral and written knowledge of the language of the country they are now living in. This paper describes an on-going research project--Writing and Reading with Art (WRAP)…

Education and related services are relying increasingly on empirically supported treatments (ESTs), which have been shown to improve student outcomes through rigorous research. Many organizations have developed review systems with guidelines for judging the quality of studies and identifying ESTs. However, little explicit attention has been paid…

Students entering school with limited vocabularies are at a disadvantage compared to classmates with robust knowledge of words and meanings. Teaching a few unrelated words at a time is insufficient for catching these students up with peers and preparing them to comprehend texts they will encounter across the grades. This article presents…

Early reading development is a complex process that includes the acquisition of skills such as alphabet recognition, phonemic awareness, and vocabulary development. Early educators make important instructional decisions in their classrooms about how to support these skills. Understanding these decisions, and the beliefs and experiences that…

Close reading is a recommended instructional approach to meet the challenges of teaching complex texts. But close readings are more common in high school and college than in elementary schools. In this article, we identify the components of close reading that were developed after a group of elementary school teachers observed their colleges in…

This book has been designed for elementary teachers who want to meet the Common Core Standards for Reading Literature as they teach social studies. The class activities recommended in this book for each grade level allow teachers to accomplish the following objectives: (1) Achieve specific learning expectations outlined in the National Curriculum…