Students who can use a term conversantly in academic environments know how to use it precisely in their writing and in their interactions with others; they can be said to deeply know, not just the word term in alphabetic or spoken forms, but the connections to ideas the term embodies. When students are intrigued by words and ideas, they want to…

Once students have mastered the mechanics of reading, they are expected to learn new material by reading. This new material, however, becomes increasingly more complex as students enter upper elementary and especially middle and high school. If students fail to comprehend what they read, they risk failure in content courses such as science and…

The Common Core State Standard and Next Generation Science Standards emphasize language and literacy across disciplines, requiring shifts in teaching practices and inventive approaches. This case study focuses on the instructional decision-making and activities of one uniquely experienced and qualified seventh-grade science teacher, whose English…

We examine the literacy gender gap through the documented experiences of 3 representative high schools boys and their teacher--how they view themselves as students, their dispositions toward schooling and education, and their engagement with literacy--as a way to further understand how literacy teachers can better work with them. We offer a case…

Academic reading proficiently is characterized by the ability to perform cognitive tasks associated with interpreting text. Researchers developed an externally validated Informal Academic Reading Proficiency Test to gauge undergraduates' academic reading proficiency. A cross-sectional study of 23 classes completed the reading test in 2014. This…

This experimental study explored the impact of representation + glossary label visuals on science outcomes in a sample of 174 Grade 7 English learners (ELs). Analysis of covariance results indicated that, regardless of English proficiency, ELs in both treatment and control conditions performed similarly on reading comprehension (p = 0.26) and…

Students who struggle with vocabulary knowledge often see a decline in comprehension of content. Even students who receive strong reading instruction in the early elementary years may still experience the fourth-grade slump (Chall, 1983), which more often affects students from underserved populations. Many of those same students are also affected…

Anecdotal evidence shared by teachers appears to support the iPad as a useful tool for working with children with autism. However, there are thousands of possible applications, known as "apps", available in the Apple iTunes store for download and trying to decide what would be most useful for students can be daunting. This article will…

This study critically explored Filipino third graders' fluency in science to determine their readiness to comprehend and understand fourth level science, which is taught in English. This mixed design case research purposively sampled 30 third graders from a government-owned elementary school. An oral reading technique using a pre-selected science…

For any student, middle and high school can be challenging. But for an English learner or striving reader--and the myriad words, phrases, syntax, texts, and concepts they must negotiate on a daily basis--the stakes seem a whole lot higher. Fortunately for content-area teachers, Margarita Calderón and Shawn Slakk make available in a single resource…

This article argues that every teacher is not a teacher of literacy, but instead posits that teachers in content areas must adapt literacy strategies to the content being taught and to the context in which that teaching occurs. Examples of adaptations of a literacy strategy for use in English/language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies…

Encouraging undergraduate students to access, read, and analyze current primary literature can positively impact learning, especially in advanced courses. The incorporation of literature into coursework typically involves reading and responding to full research reports. Such exercises have clear value as students make connections between…

The recent call for secondary reading instruction to move away from a focus on generic literacy strategies to discipline-specific language and literacy practices presents new challenges for secondary teacher preparation. This column identifies some of the roles literacy teacher educators can play in helping address these challenges.

Framed by a sociocultural understanding of literacy acquisition and learning, this research study investigates methods content area teachers can use to meet the needs of adolescent English language learners and native English speakers who struggle to read texts in school. The interventions were designed to both expand students' concepts of…

Students must be taught to write and then be expected to write for a variety of purposes to a variety of audiences, including in mathematics, science, and social studies. As part of building the writing prowess of students, they must write routinely, both short and long pieces. As part of a comprehensive writing curriculum, students' writing…