The study addresses teachers and instructional leaders of English Language Learners (ELLs), one of the fastest growing student populations in the United States. English Language Learners comprise a diverse group of students including native-born Americans who happen to speak a language other than English as their primary language. One of the most…

What happens when middle and high school teachers who know their content very well are told they should be teaching reading and writing too? Is there a bit of resistance? A decrease in self-efficacy? An overturning of curricula? In "Disciplinary Literacy in Action," ReLeah Cossett Lent and Marsha Voigt show us a better way. In this…

The ability to comprehend science texts is not only an academic skill but a life skill. Currently, however, the majority of students across grade levels in the United States are reading below grade level "and" have science achievement below grade level. The text structure strategy, a reading comprehension strategy in which students are…

The challenge of reading across disciplines is often not a matter of word recognition or general comprehension instruction; it is a matter of understanding how ideas are represented in the language and conventions of that discipline. In this article we describe a strategy for foregrounding the disciplines in the design and implementation of…

Teachers' collaboration and interaction experiences combine great opportunities to exchange knowledge and skills to boost the rigor of lesson plans and impact student learning. This study explores pre-service and in-service teacher collaborations and their interactions in an attempt to create a Scaffolded Reading Lesson SRL plan for grade twelve…

Previous surveys of university academic reading generally employed questionnaires and fell short of an in-depth analysis of students' skill needs and difficulties. Taking a qualitative approach, the current study interviewed 22 undergraduates and 7 language teachers from a New Zealand university. Together the participants highlighted a number of…

Previous research demonstrates that integration of science and literacy instruction in primary grades has positive outcomes for students' science and literacy development. However, variations in how science and literacy are enacted suggest integration may not be sufficient to meet the literacy and science needs of all students in an equitable…

Presenting text in digital format with annotation supports may relieve some of the cognitive load that hinders inferential comprehension for students with comprehension deficits. Science texts are particularly difficult, as the content may not be within the knowledge repertoire of a reader. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects…

This study, which was drawn from a larger published work, examined language proficiency and literacy skills predictive of learning content and function words via the commonly used practice of flashcard word reading, which tests word knowledge in isolation. The current study also investigated differences in word learning performance between…

Although the benefits of extensive reading are well known, very little research has investigated the validity of assessment tools to measure general comprehension of graded readers. To address this, quizzes were authored for 42 level 2 Penguin graded readers and administered to 166 students over a semester. Item facility for high-scorers and…

This study investigated the approximations of disciplinary literacy in high school English Language Arts students' writing. To study the development of these disciplinary conventions, the portfolios of written literary analyses were examined from fourteen twelfth-grade students over their last two years in high school. The conceptual framework for…

More than 50% of fourth graders in the United States are reading below a proficient level, with more than 75% of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch scoring lower than the U.S. average reading score. A framework of background knowledge is essential for vocabulary acquisition so the reader can comprehend the meaning of a text.…

Designed to help instructional leaders deliver effective training to teachers, this guide provides one of four evidence-based recommendations for supporting literacy among English learner students in grades 4-8. It includes practical application ideas and examples, as well as resources for immediate implementation. This guide is based on…

This study aimed at examining context effects of processing science terminology in Chinese during the reading process. The science texts were first chosen, and then they were replaced by science terminology with familiar words; other common words remained in both texts. The results implied that readers spent longer rereading durations and total…

Content area literacy and disciplinary literacy are umbrella terms that describe two approaches to literacy instruction embedded within different subject areas or disciplines. Under a content area literacy approach, students learn reading and writing processes that are common across disciplines. As part of content area literacy instruction,…