Children who read only when they have no choice will not become good readers. One of the simplest ways to motivate children to read at all grade levels is for teachers to read to their classes. In this column, the author suggests some steps that teachers can take to make reading more appealing to their students.

The Indexical Hypothesis suggests a new method for enhancing children's reading comprehension. Young readers may not consistently "index," or map, words to the objects the words represent. Consequently, these readers fail to derive much meaning from the text. The instructional method involves manipulating toy objects referred to in the…

This article evaluates the "Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read: An Evidence-Based Assessment of the Scientific Research Literature on Reading and Its Implications for Reading Instruction: Reports of the Subgroups" (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000). The author also examines the…

For many teachers, integration of subjects like science and reading makes perfect sense; for others--including many school administrators--it does not. For these individuals, integration is an approach that takes away valuable time needed to ensure that specific learning goals are met in each discrete subject. By building on the common ground…

In this article, the authors assist teachers who are working with young students at risk for reading disabilities by helping make sense of the large--but unwieldy--scientific knowledge base. They offer a conceptual framework for thinking about beginning reading instruction and intervention across three dimensions: the "content of instruction"…

Experts agree that reading is the most important skill children must acquire. However, as the popular press often chides, there are millions of U.S. students who struggle to read and comprehend adequately. As a result, these students risk both school and workplace failure. Research confirms that good readers actively comprehend and simultaneously…

Many students with disabilities require specialized instructional interventions and frequent progress monitoring in reading. The guided repeated oral reading technique promotes oral reading fluency while providing a reliable data-based monitoring system. This article emphasizes the importance of problem-solving when using this reading approach.

Revising reading program can breathe new life into the classroom and increase students' confidence. This paper describes how one teacher decided to refine her reading curriculum. She had five non-negotiables for the curriculum: the need for self-selection of quality literature; volume of reading; peer interaction; individual conferences; and…

For schools to effectively teach literacy, they should work with, not against, the cultural tools that students bring to school. Outside school, students' lives are immersed in visually mediated narratives. By tapping into the cultural, artistic, and linguistic resources of popular culture and multimedia, teachers can create more willing readers…

While many teachers teach comprehension strategies by concentrating on isolated skills, often in the form of worksheet drills, comprehension is actually an active, constructive process that occurs before, during and after reading a particular selection. In order to comprehend reading material, readers must merge the knowledge they already own,…

The National Reading Panel (NRP) issued a Congressional mandated report to identify key skills and methods related to the development of successful reading skills. One of the first of identified skills is phonemic awareness. This column addresses this area of reading instruction and provides suggestions for literature to be shared with young…

The relevance effect refers to the facilitative effect of relevance instructions on learning. The authors examined the effect of general prereading relevance instructions on fact and concept learning, essay quality, and reading time. College students either did or did not receive relevance instructions before reading an expository text.…

Research demonstrates that students learn to read words in contextual guessing, letter-sound decoding, analogy, and insight. The reading subtest results had demonstrated that the students in the word detectives group read significantly more words correctly than the students in the benchmark word identification program.

The recent findings on the prevention and remediation of reading failure are overlooked. A multitiered approach involving high quality classroom instruction and small group interventions can substantially reduce the proportion of students who struggle to read.

The effective classroom reading instruction and early reading interventions is routinely misrepresented and exaggerated by the federal officials. Individual tutoring that produces on-level reading achievement is presented based on the misinterpretations of the research.