Middle level students are making the transition from "learning to read" to "reading to learn." They are discovering how to apply the foundational reading skills they were taught in elementary school to text and content that is longer and more conceptually complex, and that incorporates more advanced terminology. This is no small task for students…

"Animals" is a three-part lesson plan for young learners with a zoo animal theme. The first lesson is full of activities to describe animals, with Simon Says, guessing games, and learning stations. The second lesson is about desert animals, but other types of animals could be chosen depending on student interest. This lesson teaches…

Profound differences exist between the ways in which arts educators and artists personally value the arts and the rationales offered via arts advocacy campaigns for public arts support. The author argues that those discrepancies carry grave consequences for K-university arts education. The author describes means by which to better reconcile…

The author's middle school has created a mediated set of electronic learning resources designed to more effectively meet students' research needs. These research strategies help students with a variety of reading skills and allow students, and their teachers, to focus on higher-level thinking activities because the resource collections provide…

This textbook is part of a series of school readers to help children acquire the art and the habit of reading well enough to give pleasure not only to themselves, but also to those who listen to them. The selections to be memorized are such as have been recommended and required by the departments of education in New York state and elsewhere. They…

This textbook is part of a series of school readers to help children acquire the art and the habit of reading well enough to give pleasure not only to themselves, but also to those who listen to them. The selections to be memorized are such as have been recommended and required by the departments of education in New York state and elsewhere. They…

Students in Deanna L. Nelson's high school classroom study vocabulary gradually over a period of time. Students begin by collecting words from readings and listing them on a designated whiteboard. They prepare practice quizzes to exchange with peers and engage in frequent vocabulary discussions that emphasize recognition of context clues and other…

The theme of health offers a variety of language-learning possibilities. This three-part lesson plan for young learners can be adapted to other audiences. It includes a reading, a dialogue, and a listening script. The first lesson asks learners to analyze lifestyle choices and give advice. The second lesson takes students to a sporting goods…

Teachers can use comics for reading instruction by capitalizing on their colorful graphic representation. Technology and reading are wed during the use of the Internet, and readers must rely on their visual literacy skills--a group of vision competencies people can hone for comprehension. This article reports on strategies for developing visual…

This book contains a collection of formal and informal reading assessments for use with students in Grades K-12. These assessments assist the teacher in targeting areas of strength and weakness, in monitoring student reading development, and in planning appropriate instruction. Unlike large-scale achievement tests, the majority of these…

This exciting guide provides professionals with a balanced emergent literacy program that develops language, print awareness, and phonological awareness skills. Activities in these three domains are integrated into 10 lessons. Each "PreRead" session begins with a written and oral presentation of the sequence of activities for that day using a…

This lesson uses a text about the houseboats of Kashmir to give students practice with descriptions, compound words, and participles. The lesson plan could be adapted to tourist destinations familiar to the students. Students are asked to write a description of their homes and create a tourism brochure for their own cities or towns.

There is a national movement underway to assist teachers in connecting the ideas and practices found in multicultural, general, and special education (Sobel & Taylor, 2006, p.29). In particular, educators are seeking innovative ways to implements general education practices with students with low incidence disabilities. This article describes the…

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'…

Students whose language, ethnicity, and race are not represented in a school's dominant culture experience varying degrees of success in reading achievement, resulting in persistent gaps in reading achievement. Culturally responsive instruction can help to close that gap. This teaching strategy capitalizes on the knowledge and literacy strategies…