This article presents a story of the transformation of summer reading at Barnstable High School (BHS) in Massachusetts which took place during the last year of the author's practice as a school library media specialist before she began her work as a professor and researcher at Rutgers University. It is a true story about effecting change and…

Students are challenged to pass mandated tests in grades three through eight and the exit test on the secondary school level in order to be promoted to the next higher grade level or to receive a high school diploma. Failure is certainly a negative experience. It behooves reading teachers to assist learners to attach meaning to what is being…

The Position Statement on the School Library Media Specialist's Role in Reading, adopted by the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) Board in February 2009, is a guide to help practitioners build library programs that support every learner's development in reading. As part of the Learning4Life (L4L) plan to implement the Standards for…

Title I schools that want desperately to raise student scores on high-stakes tests often have found it hard to resist the lure of scripted literacy programs, especially in the face of pressure from No Child Left Behind to raise test scores. In recent years, many high-poverty elementary schools have adopted such programs in spite of evidence about…

Teacher knowledge and instructional expertise have been found in correlational and pre- and post-test studies to be related to student reading achievement. This article summarizes data presented in this special issue and additional research to address four questions: (a) What do expert reading teachers know? (b) Why do teachers need to acquire…

Although parents and teachers appreciate the value of reading aloud to early elementary children, they often forget that upper elementary children can still benefit from individual attention during reading. A small pilot study in a South Carolina elementary school demonstrates the value of pairing adults and children for regular reading time.…

Much like the shifting landscape in K-12 educational technology, this year's "Technology Counts" issue is changing to address the challenges of covering schools in the digital age. The 2010 report does not issue state report cards or state policy reports. Instead, the report takes a more district- and school-level look at educational…

This article highlights significant research about what below grade-level reading means in middle school classrooms and suggests a tested approach to improve reading comprehension levels significantly by using audio books. The use of these audio books can improve reading and academic performance for both English language learners (ELLs) and for…

An easily-implemented instructional innovation that improved reading comprehension for students including striving readers, average readers, and advanced readers is described in this article. START (Students and Teachers Actively Reading Text) was developed to improve reading comprehension instruction and achievement. This innovative instructional…

Critical literacy's synonym is analytical reading. When analytical skills are employed, there is a thorough investigation so that all components are taken into account. When a reader analyzes a piece of text or other media, he/she must look at all of its components, starting with why it was written, whom it includes and excludes, and…

After several years of planning and a series of false starts, a new federal venture to review reading research has hit another bureaucratic hurdle--one that could keep it from ever getting off the ground. A planned announcement last week of the membership of the Commission on Reading Research was put on hold by the National Institute for Literacy…

The authors, one a teacher-researcher and the other a literacy researcher, take on the daunting task of vocabulary instruction in a school with a socioeconomically diverse population. They have designed a literacy program that emphasizes vocabulary development and uses personal choice (for motivation) and scaffolded literacy strategies (for…

Writers carefully include critical information in the opening lines of their chapters, but students often gloss over these beginning sentences, missing information that could help them better comprehend the text. To address this concern, the authors created a strategy that prompts students to examine the opening lines of chapters, helping readers…

This article discusses how Book buddy reading activities can help to develop interpersonal relationships between younger and older students, increase all children's reading levels and abilities, and foster their positive self-esteem and confidence. Teachers, families, and other caregivers often seek techniques to improve children's reading…

Over a quarter of 8th-grade students and more than one-third of 4th graders do not read well enough to understand important concepts and acquire new knowledge from grade-level text. For students with learning disabilities, the numbers are more troubling. This article describes features of evidence-based instruction for students who continue to…