Stop for a moment and wonder: what's happening in your brain right now--as you read this paragraph? How much do you know about the innumerable and amazing connections that your mind is making as you, in a flash, make sense of this request? "Why does it matter?" "The Reading Mind" is a brilliant, beautifully crafted, and…

The purpose of a "Critical and Creative" approach to literacy is not to place the burden of our responsibility on students, but rather to liberate them from the feeling of being trapped by unmalleable, self-defeating circumstances. Through actual demonstration and experience, teachers need to give students the confidence that they are…

The most effective way to understand what a child knows about the reading process is to take a running record. In "Running Records", Mary Shea demonstrates how teachers can use this powerful tool to design lessons that decrease reading difficulties, build on strengths, and stimulate motivation, ensuring that children develop self-sustaining…

As the ongoing national indicator of what American students know and can do, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in Reading regularly collects achievement information on representative samples of students in grades 4, 8, and 12. Through The Nation's Report Card, the NAEP Reading Assessment reports how well students perform in…

Serious reading problems exist among adolescent learners, as evidenced by declining national reading scores and increased dropout rates. Teachers can reverse this downward spiral by using the "scaffolded reading experience" (SRE) in their instruction. SRE is an organizational framework that secondary teachers may use to integrate the reading…

The overarching goal to create life-long learners who are enthusiastic readers requires a two-pronged approach: (1) enhancing dispositions; and (2) simultaneously teaching reading skills. This approach is powerfully portrayed in the children's book, "Thank You, Mr. Falker" (Polacco, 1998). This article explores how teachers of young children can…

The reading and literacy focus of a unit that centers on chocolate can provide a context for using the interpretive mode of the communication standard from the "National Standards in Foreign Language Education." This article presents a thematic unit that is applicable to all languages and adaptable to any level. Inspired by Woodlands'…

This guide will help teach phonemic awareness to Pre K-3 students. It presents phonemic awareness as a sophisticated branch of phonological awareness through interactive activities that allows the student to succeed in learning the sounds represented by the letters of the alphabet. The book is designed to provide easy-to-follow suggestions for:…

Teachers and their students can benefit from examining the role of professional editors and their response to writing. The editor's role lies primarily in giving service to the writer, the reader, the publishing house, and the power of the written word. Editors like Harold Ross and Max Perkins have evoked the trust of many writers by making sure…

This book provides educators, parents and caretakers with a variety of instructional strategies for engaging K-8 students. These approaches are designed to enable all students to read easily and enjoyably by utilizing different styles and approaches. The techniques are not generally found in conventional classrooms, but are specifically targeted…

This book uses phonics to teach reading in a complete manual for beginning and remedial readers of all ages. The book builds sounds and spelling patterns slowly and systematically into syllables, phrases, and sentences of gradually increasing complexity, presenting only one sound per lesson--each new sound builds upon previously learned skills for…

Deaf elementary and secondary students were found to be less skilled when reading stories in "elaboration" (i.e., drawing conclusions through interpretation of details), a process requiring higher-order thinking skills. An approach to teaching these skills is described that compares and contrasts a series of stories sharing a common theme. (VW)

Noting that readers are a lot like detectives, this two-part book (a professional book for teachers and a fun "nonworkbook" for students) introduces students and teachers to "mystery cases" that are actually reading strategy lessons for third through eighth graders and their teachers. The teacher section offers a comprehensive overview of the…

A discussion of second language reading instruction to develop language proficiency examines the concept of reading proficiency, the reading processes used by native speakers and language learners, the importance of top-down and bottom-up reading, activating predicting and projecting skills, the difference between reading at the peak of one's…

A study examined primary grade children's comprehension processes while reading a particular story in which specific areas likely to pose reading difficulty had been identified. Based on the children's readings and on their answers to questions concerning the text, five problem areas were identified: (1) poor decoding or word attack skills (2)…