Are you looking for ways to enhance and strengthen how you teach your students to write effective opinion pieces as outlined in the English Language Arts Common Core State Standards? In this teaching tip, the authors describe an innovative and dialogic approach that elementary school teachers can use and adapt as needed to strengthen students'…

The purpose of this article is to provide guidance on the implementation of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts (CCSS-ELA). Toward this end, suggestions and cautions are provided that focus on understanding the vision, understanding the anchor and grade-level standards, and understanding the implications for instruction. In…

Numerous research studies prove that wide reading improves children's comprehension, background knowledge, vocabulary, fluency, and writing. The author, a sixth-grade language arts teacher, describes the classroom conditions and instructional practices that encourage wide reading and increase her students' reading motivation such as choice in…

In viewing developments in communications media, a wide realm of language arts skills is largely ignored by educators in traditional reading instruction. (TO)

Reviews several studies showing that learning to type enhances children's language arts skills. Describes a program that successfully taught typing to elementary school children. (FL)

Lists and describes 14 reading programs offered through the National Diffusion Network (NDN) and approved by a special review panel of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (DHEW).

Uses proverbs to facilitate the development of inferential reading skills. Provides examples of proverbs which children have finished with their own original endings. (MG)

Describes how a unit titled "Alice Adjective" can be presented dramatically by the teacher in four lessons. (MG)

Sees reading not as a subject to be taught but as an integral part of an open classroom that fosters some basic principles of learning. (TO)

Describes ways to accelerate reading and language skills by experience stories, creative writing, and books. (TO)

Noting that recommendations for integrating elementary reading and writing often fail to provide adequate specific suggestions, proposes seven instructional principles based upon research on the reading-writing relationship and suggests specific techniques for each principle. (NH)

Reports findings of a study of randomly selected Caldecott Award-winning books, suggesting that they can be used as a powerful resource for stimulating language development. Presents ideas for using the books in the classroom. (FL)