Many middle school and high school students have difficulty reading and understanding academic texts, which limits their ability to meet today's high learning standards. This guidebook addresses this quiet but growing crisis. Aimed at content area teachers in secondary schools, the guidebook describes a successful approach to helping students…

Competent readers use strategies automatically; moreover, the use of strategies is a natural part of their reading process. Interested in the effects of the direct teaching of strategies to poor readers, a researcher decided to use a classroom action research approach. She studied reading strategies used by competent readers before, during, and…

Consisting of four articles taken from the "Minneapolis Star Tribune" with 10 questions for each article, this Practice Test gives an answer sheet and an answer key (including specification to the type of question either Literal Comprehension or Inferential Comprehension). These practice tests are not intended to be psychometrically…

These booklets are intended for students in Alberta, Canada, taking the Grade 12 Diploma Examinations in English 30. The readings booklet presents 7 reading selections from fiction and nonfiction literature. After instructions for students, the booklet presents: (1) Lance Morrow's essay "Metaphors of the World, Unite!"; (2) Carl…

This book and the conference that gave rise to its chapters were conceived as a means of investigating how to translate important sets of research findings in reading and reading instruction into practice. Topics for inclusion were selected for their high priority in terms of practice or policy; for their potential for making a substantial…

Teachers can greatly extend a child's literacy development through the use of interactive read-alouds. When a story is read aloud to children a number of opportunities arise for extended activities that are related to the story and further literacy support. Children are able to learn about literacy through an adult modeling good reading behavior.…

In this study, students who registered for a course at the Open University of Israel could choose the tutorial method they preferred: group face-to-face tutorials with a local tutor in their residential vicinity; tutorials via satellite broadcasting to groups of students around the country; or getting the same satellite tutorial at home on the…

Differentiating textbooks is modifying or adapting textbooks in ways that make them easier for students to read and comprehend and then to retain what they have read. This book explains how teachers can motivate their students as they are confronted with text which is generally written in a "less-than-engaging" expository style. The strategies…

This report summarizes the research studies, literature reviews and related documents on the relationship between public school students' achievement and the library media program. Research indicates students in schools with well-equipped library media centers and professional library media specialists perform better on achievement tests for…

This paper describes a five-phase, 20-week, computer supported reading comprehension instruction process, which begins with access to powerful supports and direct teacher-mediated instruction. The process involves five phases: (1) fully supported reading and strategy instruction; (2) strategy practice in a fully supported reading environment with…

Reader's Theatre can be used to combine basic literature and writing instruction with creative arts. Improvisational playmaking by students, using literature in the form of plays, prose, and poetry, forms the basis of Reader's Theatre. Use of Reader's Theatre in the classroom can: (1) foster deeper understanding of character, setting, and plot…

The purpose of this article is to explain each of the three phases of reading textbooks and to provide strategies for aiding students to better understand and connect to their textbooks in each of these phases. Each of the three phases is named for its writing counterpart: planning, drafting, and evaluating. This article also states that three…

In this essay collection, scholars in the area of early literacy provide concrete strategies for achieving excellence in literacy instruction. The collection presents current, research-based information on the advances and refinements in the area of emerging literacy and the early stages of formal instruction in reading and writing. Following a…

This paper shows how the concept of general objectivity can be used to improve behavioral science measurement, particularly as it applies to the Lexile Framework, a tool for objectively measuring reading comprehension. It begins with a dialogue between a physicist and a psychometrician that details some of the differences between physical science…

This paper discusses what is known about learning to date by emphasizing "connections" as necessary for learning. Knowledge about these connections can be placed into four categories: (1) neurological connections; (2) cognitive connections; (3) social connections; and (4) experiential connections. In terms of neurological connections, sensory…