We offer this article to support ELA and other subject-area teachers as they think about why disciplinary literacy teaching is important and how to enact it in robust ways. We argue that it is critical for the improvement of students' academic literacy development and overall learning that all teachers and literacy researchers attend to the…

Recent calls have been made for content area literacy instruction to extend beyond the teaching of general literacy strategies as tools to use with any content text to a more disciplinary literacy approach that would support students in learning literacy practices specific to a discipline. This practitioner inquiry is my investigation into what…

Vocabulary presents a challenge to students in content area classes, making it difficult to understand new concepts and make connections to background knowledge. This article describes the 5 Cs, a tool developed to help content area teachers consider vocabulary as part of lesson planning. By selecting a set of key words for instruction, teachers…

The incorporation of literacy strategies into content area instruction has been proposed as an effective way of improving student learning in the content areas. However, few studies have examined how teachers incorporate content literacy strategies into their instruction and the specific nature of implementation. As part of an ongoing professional…

This volume in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for English Language Learners series was designed to deepen teacher's knowledge and provides instructional approaches and practices for supporting grades 6-12 ELLs as they meet the ambitious expectations of the CCSS for Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects. This…

This document was prepared to assist literacy specialists in the national Regional Comprehensive Center network as they work with states to improve educational policy and practice in the area of adolescent literacy. It comprises three major parts: Part One: "Improving academic literacy instruction for students in grades 4-12." Based on…

The implementation of effective instructional materials, such as a core reading program, by a qualified teacher is an important part of improving students' reading achievement. But selecting those instructional materials can be time-consuming. Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Southeast created this rubric for evaluating reading/language arts…

This quantitative, action research study sought to explore the effects of introducing the ReQuest reading comprehension technique to students who are accustomed to using a world history textbook and the initiate-respond-evaluate questioning pattern to acquire basic historical information. Data collected from a series of paired sample quiz scores…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) urge English language arts teachers to assume responsibility for teaching technical reading, along with literature, poetry, and composition. Ideally, each teacher assumes a share in developing reading proficiency within his or her content area, but state assessments may implicitly compel school districts to…

In the early 1990s, in an effort to enhance their majors' ability to communicate mathematical ideas, the Mathematics Department at Bellarmine University added a capstone course, "Readings in Mathematics," to the curriculum of each degree program in the department. We provide an overview of the course, noting its unique aspects, with…

The study reviewed in this paper examined the effects of the instructional practice "Promoting Acceleration of Comprehension and Content Through Text" ("PACT"), an approach that aims to improve social studies content knowledge and reading comprehension. This study took place in two middle schools in a near-urban district in…

National surveys reveal that graphic novels are perhaps the most popular recreational reading choice for adolescents--especially among boys. Graphic novels cover numerous topics, and this variety, along with their enormous popularity, makes them enticing and useful resources for teaching and learning in virtually any classroom. Since the…

Response to Intervention (RTI) has the potential to have a positive impact on adolescent literacy by requiring content-area teachers to provide Tier 1 literacy instruction. This commentary suggests that content-area teachers can help their students improve their content knowledge and literacy skills by providing discipline-specific strategy…

Language sometimes creates confusion when teaching music concepts to children. Incorporating children's literature may further enhance children's comprehension of music vocabulary when preceded by listening and moving experiences, as well as singing and playing instruments. "The Quiet Book," and its companion, "The Loud Book!" both authored by…

Writing allows students to clarify their thinking. Through the process of writing, students recognize what they know and what they still need to learn. This article describes how a middle school mathematics teacher and language arts teacher worked with a secondary content area literacy professor during a specific writing assignment. The "How-to"…