As your school district undertakes the process of evaluating its K-12 reading program, literacy curriculum, or literacy instructional practices, this book will be your go-to resource. Pennell offers a step-by-step guide for educators, school leaders, or professional learning communities to evaluate high-quality instructional materials and…

To explore whether different balances of fiction/non-fiction reading and challenge might help explain differences in reading achievement between genders, data on 45,670 pupils who independently read over 3 million books were analysed. Moderate (rather than high or low) levels of challenge were positively associated with achievement gain, but…

Designed to consider whether pictures might facilitate word identification and word learning and to determine the most appropriate design of pictures to aid in independent reading, this instrument consists of 24 sentences and accompanying pictures that completely or partially represent the noun information in the sentence. Substitutions for the…

Summer reading suggestions are offered for teachers and students. Brief descriptions and sources of 11 children's magazines are provided. (DB)

This study elaborates the "what works?" question by exploring the effects of variability in program implementation quality on achievement. Particularly, the effects on achievement of computerized assessment of reading were investigated, analyzing data on 51,000 students in Grades 1-12 who read over 3 million books. When minimum implementation…

Based on the philosophy that children learn best in functional, natural settings when a desire for learning persists, this book provides classroom-tested strategies for teaching children how to monitor and improve their own comprehension as they read a variety of texts. The goal of the book is to empower students to become successful, independent…

Research has shown that independent reading, both in school and out, is associated with gains in reading achievement. Principals can play a critical role by promoting voluntary reading to teachers, students, parents, and the community. (17 references) (MLF)

Discusses how to use sustained silent reading to encourage elementary students in independent reading. The strategies include making independent reading a key part of every day, being sure students know the strategies they should practice, and concluding independent reading sessions by discussing strategies. The paper presents a list of 13…

This article offers a strategy for helping students to choose material they can read during sustained silent reading periods in school and independently at home. The rubric considers the following readability factors: vocabulary, sentence complexity, topic and concepts, clarity of ideas, level of abstraction, organization, design and format,…

Describes an instruction approach for teaching external clues that context clue instruction occurs over many years at all grade levels and asserts that this can used for learning vocabulary. Defines external context clues as syntactic and semantic elements within and among sentences. (SRT)

A free reading program in which learning disabled adolescents select from a variety of high interest-low vocabulary materials can help motivate students to read. Students follow up the reading period by writing in a journal which the teacher reads and responds to. (CL)

This article presents easy computer projects to send students into the summer feeling good about the past year and looking forward to the next. The projects involve printing summer reading book lists, making bridges to the next grade, publishing books of class events, designing reading posters, and creating summer calendars. (SM)

To motivate students to read, it is important for teachers to teach the reader, not the reading. This article presents three strategies for accomplishing this: studying the child, not the book; focusing on students' reading lives and knowing them as readers; and thinking of students as readers. (SM)

The independent reading program described in this lesson plan gives students time to read what they want to read, share what they have read, and receive the support they need for further reading explorations and reflections. Students will: work in a community of readers and learners, including other class members, family members, their teacher,…

Describes an independent reading program for gifted students used by the the Blue Mountain Union Schools in Wells River, Vermont. (JL)