Using a balanced approach that integrates the language arts and blends teacher and student leadership strategies, this book offers a variety of activities for teaching reading and writing and has a flexible design, making the book adaptable for use at all grade levels. The balanced approach in the book uses a compatible combination of…

Teachers can confront issues of students' infrequent reading and infrequent choice of content area texts by using specific instructional strategies that are highly motivating. Five research-based language arts strategies that many teachers use to successfully teach content area information are: (1) previewing vocabulary and content; (2) developing…

Providing a foundation in which researchers may build future research and theory and in which teachers may design more effective classroom practice, this book presents 12 essays that bring together the contributions of researchers and teacher-scholars to present the significant theory and research related to the writing process. The book is…

Suggesting the need for balanced reading and writing instruction, this book is a compendium of many of the best teaching ideas presently available to reading professionals. The first part of the book addresses the research and practice related to understanding and supporting literacy development, and the second part "puts it all…

The outline for a reading course based on both intensive and extensive reading of short stories is presented. The 11-week course focuses on five stories, three selected by the teacher and two selected by the students as a class. A course overview details the sequence of reading and classroom activities, and the procedures for a typical four-week…

This report describes a program to increase sight/functional vocabulary to improve reading comprehension. The targeted population consisted of one 2nd-3rd grade and one 6th-8th grade cross-categorical self-contained class, located in an elementary school and a middle school. The schools were located in a northeast suburb of a major city in the…

This paper explores three different language representation methods used to access vocabulary in augmentative alternative communication (AAC) and identifies which are most effective for core and extended vocabulary. The benefits and drawbacks of using spelling, single meaning pictures, and semantic compaction (Minspeak) are described. The paper…

The National Reading Panel (NRP) issued a report in 2000 that responded to a congressional mandate to help parents, teachers, and policymakers identify key skills and instructional methods central to reading achievement. The panel identified five areas that they found to be critical to effective reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics,…

Describes one teacher's numerous approaches for expanding the vocabularies and fostering positive self-concepts and attitudes toward school among the three linguistically very different groups of children in her classroom. (TO)

It was hypothesized that verbal ability becomes increasingly differentiated from other abilities such as numerical, spatial, and perceptual, and increasingly specific and similar in structure to the ability of groups with more learning experience. (Author)