Over the past two decades there has been much written in the literature about the importance of reading and the importance of teaching students reading strategies to improve their reading comprehension. Reading is one of the most important academic tasks encountered by students. In higher education, students are exposed to a number of texts and…

This article presents an in-depth case study of a complex community of inquiry. In this community, teachers worked collaboratively to build from situated assessments of students' "learning through reading" to refine and monitor practices designed to enhance student learning in their subject-area classrooms. In this report, we present evidence to…

Textbooks play an important role in undergraduate mathematics courses and have the potential to impact student learning. However, there have been few studies that describe students' textbook use in detail. In this study, 1156 undergraduate students in introductory mathematics classes were surveyed, and asked to describe how they used their…

Mathematics textbooks play a critical role in shaping instruction and the ways students and teachers use strategies. Math textbooks are written using language patterns that differ from the narrative patterns many elementary students typically read (Fang & Schleppegrell, 2010; Moje et al., 2012). Mathematical texts rely on a large amount of…

Liberal arts students are expected to graduate college with fully developed critical reading and writing skills. However, for a variety of reasons these skills are not always as well developed as they might be--both during and upon completion of college. This paper describes a reading assignment that was designed to increase students'…

Reading levels of high school students are a rising concern among secondary educators. Although some recent research has shown certain reading practices to be effective, the results have not been conclusive. Further study was needed to not only determine the most effective reading practices to use with struggling high school students, but also…

The Grade 5 Informational Text Reading Inventory (ITRI) was developed to address the specific reading challenges that grade 5 students encounter when reading their textbooks and other informational text. In fifth grade, students are expected not only to comprehend difficult passages, but also to extend their comprehension through drawing…

Reading is an essential skill in education and the current technologically-driven workforce, yet it is a skill that is not mastered by all. Secondary students in a school district in central Alabama have demonstrated a low mastery rate on the reading portion of a standardized test. This quantitative research study used a non-experimental…

A common source of frustration for college instructors is getting their students to read. Since the 1970s, studies have shown that no more than 30 percent of students complete a reading assignment on any given day. But what can be done? What strategies can instructors use to make certain that their students read? Do pop or announced quizzes work…

This study aimed to determine the efficacy of a content acquisition and reading comprehension treatment implemented by eighth-grade social studies teachers. Using a within-teacher design, the eighth-grade teachers' social studies classes were randomly assigned to treatment or comparison conditions. Teachers (n = 5) taught the same instructional…

For years, educators have been trying to free history instruction from the mire of memorization and propel it with the kinds of inquiry that drive historians themselves. The common core standards may offer more impetus for districts and schools to adopt that brand of instruction. A study of one such approach suggests that it can yield a triple…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore 72 preservice teachers' attitudes toward and experiences with sharing their content area as well as their recreational reading with teenager students. Methodology: Preservice teachers who were enrolled in a required secondary content area literacy course at a Midwest university, including 49 in a…

Go beyond a one-size-fits-all approach to teaching, and discover how shifting textbooks from "sole source" to just another resource revitalizes your practice, improves student achievement, and meets Common Core State Standards. Veteran teacher and literacy expert ReLeah Cossett Lent explains that how you use textbooks makes a huge difference in…

The purpose of this action research study was two-fold. The first purpose was to examine the process of how nurses engaged in a professional development program that drew upon reading and creative writing related to their lives and work as nurses. Secondly, this study examined the nurses' perspectives on how their involvement in the process…

A 2-year, randomized control trial with 9th to 10th grade students with significant reading problems was provided for 50 minutes a day in small groups. Comparison students were provided an elective class and treatment students the reading intervention. Students were identified as demonstrating reading difficulties through failure on their state…