Although they are valid and reliable, one-minute fluency measures are defining and capturing a reduced view of fluency as simply accuracy and rate in oral reading. Thus, they may lead astray our understanding of struggling readers' reading fluency development and instructional needs. Fluency is a complicated construct. The author discusses a…

Children ages 2-18 spend between two and four hours per day watching TV, a calculation that is even higher if DVDs, videos and the Internet are included. Although the amount of television watched by today's children has raised concerns about their literacy development, captions could hold a key to turning television into an educational asset.…

Paraphrasing, somewhat different from retelling and summarizing, helps students monitor their understanding and incorporate new knowledge with what they already know about a topic. Paraphrasing helps students realize that comprehension is the goal of reading.

Mastery of content area reading in science and social studies is demonstrated through writing as well as reading. Integrating writing with reading enhances comprehension because the two are reciprocal processes. Therefore, teachers who implement a variety of writing strategies help students better understand content area texts. This article offers…

As students move through the grades, the demands of comprehending increasingly complex text increase, and some students begin to struggle. What are the differences between skilled and struggling readers? How can educators teach students to become more proficient readers? This Teaching Tip describes research into middle-level students' reading…