In this essay, we described how we use mentor texts (MTs) to foster students' disciplinary literacy--reading, writing, thinking, and performing abilities in an area related to their problem of practice. We did this by carefully creating scaffolded learning experiences affording them with multiple, situated learning opportunities over time that…

Adolescent readers require a broad range of reading skills to deal with the challenges of reading complex text. Some researchers argue for a discipline-specific focus to address the low reading proficiency rates among secondary students. Disciplinary literacy attends to the different ways disciplines, such as science, generate and communicate…

Electronic readers may be ushering in a watershed moment in personal reading, with the Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader, and Barnes & Noble Nook duking it out for market dominance (and with the iPad warming up in the wings). But how do these contenders fare in the academic marketplace? When it comes to meeting the demands of academic reading,…

To provide the first interstate quasi-experimental assessment on the power of content integration in building reading skills, the authors studied the effects on reading comprehension of GeoLiteracy--a K-8 package of 85 lessons that teaches geography in the context of practicing reading and writing skills. Ninety-six third through eighth grade…

Living in an age of communication, literacy is an extremely integral part of our society. We are impacted by literature during our infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. "Literacy for the New Millennium" includes information from specialists in the field who discuss the influence of popular culture, media, and technology on…