Research on making connections to texts has largely explored how making text connections supports reading comprehension. However, less attention has been paid to how readers make text connections through talk and in interaction during text-based discussions. In this study, I explore how text connections were co-constructed between students and…

Teachers can harness the power of video games to foster interest and engage students in literacy activities. Within this study, seven 6th graders participated in a video game book group during language arts instructional time. The study focused on tweens' figured worlds of literacy and video games and the intersections and divergences of these…

Educational research shows the value of culturally responsive pedagogies; however, special education research typically centers reading interventions that focus primarily on foundational skills. These sorts of programs rarely take learner identities into account in their design, and provide little opportunity for readers to make connections to…

The authors illustrate ways that diverse linguistic repertoires were constrained within a set of classroom book club discussions among sixth-grade students and their teachers in a public school setting. The study took place in a U.S. Mountain West middle school with a majority population of Latinx students, many of whom were emerging bilinguals…

Middle school students participated in a summer online book club as an opportunity to read and discuss texts during the summer months. The author provides considerations for educators who may be interested in conducting summer online book clubs with their students, based on student interviews and observations throughout the summer book club.

As a recipient of an ALA Libraries Transforming Communities: Focus on Small and Rural Communities grant, the author's school was fortunate to receive funds to purchase books for a special program. With a librarian partner the author ran "Book Bites" during lunchtime. The aim of this program was to provide a platform for students to…

The introduction of Common Core State Standards has many middle grade school teachers concerned with implementing standards while retaining student reading engagement and motivation strategies. This study analyzes the effectiveness of providing social networking strategies in online book discussion groups on enhancing middle grade student reading…

This study examines students' perceptions of the outcomes and processes of engaged reading in classrooms prioritizing engagement through self-selected, self-paced reading of compelling young adult literature. The primary data were 71 end-of-year student interviews, supported by end-of-year teacher interviews, biweekly observational data,…

In this Digital Literacies column, online book clubs are offered as one example of how to effectively bridge old and new literacy practices. These Internet-based book clubs capitalize on children's interest in new literacy practices while complementing, and hopefully encouraging, traditional reading practices. Examples from online book clubs…

For generations of educators who grew up on the printed word (as compared to the electronic one), books remain an enjoyable activity that can contribute to knowledge building for professional educators with wide-ranging responsibilities. Yet they have broader value beyond personal consumption. In many school districts throughout the country, books…

This study examines unintended consequences during a 6th-grade book club discussion of Bette Bao Lord's (1984) In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson. The participants modeled a book club discussion, otherwise known as the fish bowl, for a newly enrolled student. Unintended consequences occurred within the realm of deviating from the rules of…

People who read become absorbed in a process of discovery about the world around them; books open doors to otherwise inaccessible places and introduce readers to profound new ideas. Approximately 15 seventh-, eighth-, and ninth-grade members of the StreetSquash Book Club in Harlem meet on Friday afternoons to read, write, and discuss topics…