Kentucky has been a leader in the movement to more rigorous college and career ready standards to support their students' success in the 21st century. Kentucky was the first state to adopt new college and career ready standards (CCRS)--termed the Kentucky Core Academic Standards. Many of Kentucky's districts have moved proactively and…

Teach students to use their literacy skills in the content areas. Textbook circles are a great way to make the most of the skills students learn during literature circles and help them transfer these skills to assigned content area texts.

Many K-12 teachers struggle to meet the needs of diverse learners as school reforms promote new disciplinary literacy requirements. In response, language education scholars have argued that teachers must develop "disciplinary linguistic knowledge" (DLK), or an understanding of language in their content area and an ability to design…

This lesson is designed to teach students that behavior is a trait shaped by both genes and the environment. Students will read a scientific paper, discuss and generate predictions based on the ideas and data therein, and model the relationships between genes, the environment, and behavior. The lesson is targeted to meet the educational goals of…

This study examined the technical adequacy of vocabulary-matching curriculum-based measurement (CBM) to identify and monitor the progress of 148 middle school students in social studies. In addition, the effectiveness of a reading comprehension intervention, Collaborative Strategic Reading (Klingner, Vaughn, Dimino, Schumm, & Bryant, 2001),…

In the years since 2008, when the "Success with ELLs" column started, these authors have seen many changes to the educational landscape, not dealing specifically with ELLs, but having implications for their education. Probably, the most significant change has been the adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), which have no…

The authors extend previous work on students' perceptions of teachers' autonomy-enhancing and autonomy-suppressing behaviors in relation to students' engagement to a more situated context (i.e., two Grade 4 science instructional conditions instead of school in general) and a linguistically diverse population (i.e., Hispanic students). They also…

Reading performance among Grade 11 students has been low in the local school district under study. Schools within the boundaries of that setting have implemented research-based interventions to curb this problem of poor reading performance. A quasi-experimental, causal-comparative study was conducted to investigate the effect of Marzano's…

"Adolescent Literacy in the Era of the Common Core" provides school leaders, teachers, and others with strategies and best practices for advancing adolescent literacy in the classroom. Exceptionally clear and accessible, the book addresses a full range of topics in this vitally important field, including disciplinary literacy; vocabulary…

Just as the mission of the library program evolves from the school's mission, the goals of school librarians' curriculum and teaching evolves from the needs of administrators and classroom teachers. In the 21st-century, these needs are framed by standards such as Common Core State Standards (CCSS). School librarians also have the American…

Supporting the reading development of college students is the responsibility of all professors. As experts in the field, with experience navigating and interpreting readings in a particular discipline, professors are obligated to think of themselves as master artisans apprenticing their students to the craft of reading. Texts in all subject areas…

Recently, it has been proposed that schools teach disciplinary literacy in science, mathematics, history, and literature classes as students move into middle school and high school. A disciplinary literacy approach emphasizes the specialized knowledge and abilities possessed by those who create, communicate, and use knowledge within each of the…

Hands-on science activities help to make science more interesting for children and create that sense of wonder and excitement. But hands-on science and teacher lectures do not offer the full course meal. The textbook is often missing. As stated in the Common Core State Standards, students must have multiple opportunities to become independent in…

The purpose of this study was to investigate elementary school pre-service teachers' understanding of photosynthesis and to examine if a refutational text can support understanding of photosynthesis better than a non-refutational text. A total of 91 elementary school pre-service teachers read either a refutational or a non-refutational text…

This research analyses what happens when a critical reading activity based on a press article dealing with an energy-related problem is implemented with two groups of students of 13-14 years old and 16-17 years old in the same school (a total of 117 students). Specifically, the research analyses the students' profiles from the standpoint of…