Motivating today's adolescents to read is a challenge. This article discusses the kinds of literacy instructional practices that leverage what we know about adolescent motivation. It also reviews several evidence-based literacy interventions designed to engage and motivate adolescent readers that can potentially lead to improvements in student…

Motivating today's adolescents to read is a challenge. Martha Abele Mac Iver, Marcia H. Davis, and Douglas J. Mac Iver discuss the kinds of literacy instructional practices that address what we know about adolescent motivation. They also review several evidence-based literacy interventions designed to engage and motivate adolescent readers that…

Helping English learners and economically disadvantaged students read as well as their more advantaged peers is a struggle for many schools. This study tested WordGen Elementary, a program to improve fourth- and fifth-grade students' ability to understand the academic language used in school and support their reading achievement. This Study…

Primary students who struggle to read need incentive to redirect their mindset back onto the productive path of daily reading. Reading is daunting to the youngest readers who experience difficulties because the act of reading is difficult and tiresome. Effective reading engagement programs motivate these readers to read on a daily basis and…

This paper describes a four-month reading program that was implemented at a state prison and outlines how fictional stories, both read and told, can develop psychological insights such as mentalization and emotional literacy. How activities such as this can have therapeutic benefits without actually being therapy is discussed.

Two-thirds of U.S. high school students today are unable to read and comprehend complex academic materials, think critically about texts, synthesize information from multiple sources, or effectively communicate what they have learned. And in response, many teachers simply stop assigning challenging texts, opting instead to "deliver…

Reading comprehension and fluency issues are the most significant challenges facing adult, developmental reading students in community colleges. While a great deal of focus has been on improving developmental reading instruction, there is a lack of attention, and research, on how to best improve students' actual reading. Self-selected reading…

This article proposes a model for design of early-grade reading programmes that is based on research and the implementation of research findings. The model has three components: (1) schools should provide instruction in a language their students speak and understand; (2) teachers should employ instruction that is consistent with the current…

While community college instructors are experts in their academic or technical fields, most do not have training to help adults build postsecondary literacy skills. Researchers with WestEd's Strategic Literacy Initiative (SLI) sought to change that. Building on SLI's popular and proven Reading Apprenticeship model for middle and high school…

Effective teachers are continuously striving to improve their instruction. Reading Recovery teachers have detailed and specific literacy training and expertise that can be of great value to classroom teachers, especially in the area of guided reading instruction. This article explores the ways in which key Reading Recovery strategies can be…

This article describes the experiences of some of the many families of the deaf and hard of hearing children who come to Shared Reading Saturdays at Northern Essex Community College (NECC) in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The program, which includes monthly gatherings and is coordinated by the NECC's Gallaudet University Regional Center, features deaf…

Reading difficulties are experienced by children either because they fail to decode the words and thus are unable to comprehend the text or simply fail to comprehend the text even if they are able to decode the words and read them out. Failure in word decoding results from a failure in phonological coding of written information, whereas, reading…

Proud Readers Own What's Learned (PROWL) was developed out of the need to find an engaging, creative process for readers to express what they have read and, frankly, to let teachers see that the students actually read the books. In other more prescriptive reading programs students can go through the motions and actually pass tests without having…

We know more now than we ever did before about how to make every child a successful reader, write Allington and Gabriel in this research review. Yet, few students regularly receive the best reading instruction we know how to give. The authors present research supporting their recommendation that every child, every day, should (1) read something he…

The process of learning to read is difficult for many children, and this is especially true for students with learning disabilities (LD). Reading in English becomes even more difficult when a student's home language is not English. For English language learner (ELL) students with LD, acquiring the necessary skills to read fluently is an even…