Ensuring effective texts for student reading acquisition is a shared goal. This paper addresses the efficacy of decodable and leveled texts, their word features, and outcomes of reorganizing texts by vowel patterns and topics. Sparse evidence supports one text type's superiority in building a strong reading foundation. Further, the decoding…

Reading and writing are often taught separately. This article explores the crucial relations between these skills, emphasizing the importance of understanding the "what" and "why" to effectively plan the "how" of integrated reading-writing instruction. The Interactive Dynamic Literacy Model (Kim, "Reading-writing…

This article discusses language comprehension and developing skills with emergent readers, in particular verbal reasoning and language structures, that are necessary for later reading comprehension.

In this article, we explore how character perspective-taking can support students' reading comprehension, as well as opportunities to engage social-emotional learning (SEL). We start by defining character perspective-taking and SEL. Then, we present strategies for practicing character perspective-taking in classrooms, how these strategies are…

As the popularity of project-based learning grows, so does the importance of understanding how this instructional approach can support students' learning and development. The authors describe a project-based approach to literacy and social studies instruction that research has shown to be effective. Key characteristics of the approach and…

Developing young students' language and vocabulary is critical in laying the foundation for learning to read. Asking open-ended questions, which require more than a one-word response, is an effective strategy that teachers can use to elicit students' comments and engage students in extended conversations. However, to facilitate students'…

Online reading requires traditional and new comprehension skills and strategies, and these skills and strategies will have to be taught and supported, especially for young beginning readers. But how do elementary teachers go about doing this? Much of the research regarding teaching and supporting online reading comprehension has focused on older…

Building on existing research applying app maps (Israelson, 2015), the authors take an ideological orientation to broaden app evaluations and consider participatory literacies, social and communicational practices relevant to children's everyday digitally mediated lives. Drawing from their North American elementary classroom studies on children's…

Students entering school with limited vocabularies are at a disadvantage compared to classmates with robust knowledge of words and meanings. Teaching a few unrelated words at a time is insufficient for catching these students up with peers and preparing them to comprehend texts they will encounter across the grades. This article presents…

As a classroom teacher for the past eight years, the author finds it important to read professional texts, both dated and current, to learn from what has worked in the past and of new, innovative practices to reinvigorate her lesson plans. This year, she read an older yet pertinent study by Betty Hart and Todd R. Risley called "Meaningful…

Constrained skills theory is a reconceptualization of reading development that suggests a continuum of skills, with some, such as letter knowledge and decoding abilities, more tightly constrained than others, such as phonological awareness and oral reading fluency. The most constrained skills consist of a limited number of items and thus can be…

Two struggling fourth-grade readers with learning disabilities who have severe deficits in word recognition, comprehension, and reading fluency improve their reading skills using a method that combines intensive word study with the timed repeated reading of poetry. The direct instruction included semantics, morphology, orthography, and…

Reports a study indicating that an informal program of training in visual perception was equivalent to a formal program both in producing better results on a visual perception measure and on a reading achievement test. (TO)

The development of cognitive processes is essential to the development of reading comprehension skills. (MKM)

Questions the exclusive use of escapist fiction in basic reading for primary school children and stresses the development of critical reading skills through nonfiction reading material. (RW)