This article reports on one instructional lesson that integrates literacy and mathematics. Specifically, it describes a lesson conducted in a fourth-grade classroom that integrates reading, writing, drawing, and literature to teach linear measurement to the inch and fractional measurement. The article begins with a rationale for integrating…

In a five-year investigation of the practices that underpinned the culture of inquiry in one school, a discourse of inquiry was found to be central to substantive growth and change. While this discourse was often recognized for promoting and sustaining literacy learning, the authors also found that it played a key role in identifying, confronting,…

This article discusses the instructional practice of supporting second graders' information book writing with focused read-alouds that include discussions of information book genre elements, features, and organizational structure. The authors present specific examples of instruction and discuss the resulting information book compositions by…

In this column, readers are asked to reconsider several traditional instructional strategies, in particular predicting and picture walks, and the role these practices play in the elementary reading curriculum. In addition, what happens after a book has been read must be reconsidered in light of the activities in which life long readers engage. To…

This article shares an oral reading practice that develops children's fluency skills, with a particular emphasis on performance reading and prosody. The authors share their experiences with Fluency Idol! as a way to engage young children by tapping into pop culture. The practice emphasizes repeated readings, feedback, practice, and…

When students create personal connections with literature during whole-class discussion, they make sense both of text and of their life experiences. In this article, the author shares tips that help students make text-to-self, text-to-world, and text-to-text connections. She offers classroom examples to illustrate how conversations that encourage…

Students need regular opportunities to write expository text. However, focusing on report writing often leaves students without strong examples to study or analyze to guide and grow their own writing. Writing and studying feature articles, meant to inform and explain, can become an alternative to report writing, as they can easily be located in…

As teachers struggle to balance the needs of their students with the requirements of commercial reading materials, educators need to consider how teachers will create space for children's literature in today's classrooms. In this article, 10 practical recommendations for incorporating children's literature in the reading instructional framework…

Literacy coaches inspire teacher reflection and promote a culture of ongoing professional learning. This article illustrates the role of literacy coaches, describes how coaches differentiate support for a diverse group of teachers, and explains how teacher reflection can be a catalyst for change and professional growth. The authors, current and…

The following activities, Detail/Retell and Collaborate and Elaborate, adapted from the new IRA book "Creating Strategic Readers" (second edition), highlight how two of the five essential reading components are used in a comprehensive literacy classroom to create strategic readers. The activities also demonstrate how to engage and motivate…

In this "Struggling Readers" department, the author describes a collaborative lesson--a professional development strategy adapted from Reading Recovery. Collaborative lessons involve a small group of educators who collaborate to help a student who is struggling with reading. While collaborative lessons were initially designed by Reading Recovery…

Meaningful conversations are a powerful tool to help students understand what they read and make text-to-self connections. This simple lesson, which is designed for repeated use with both fiction and nonfiction, provides students with strategies to support conversations about texts. Students will learn how to determine which ideas work best to…

In this article, the authors suggest that many of the problems struggling readers encounter while reading stem from distinct yet fundamental sources of difficulty related to the types of text read (print or online), the task or activity readers engage in, and the sociocultural context of reading. The authors further argue that although these…

In this article, the authors present a snapshot of how one kindergarten and Reading Recovery teacher organized instruction in her classroom, enabling her to provide constructively responsive reading assessment and instruction for her developing and struggling readers. (Contains 2 figures.)

Response to Intervention as a model for an elementary or middle school reading program is predicated on the idea that effective instruction will prevent most reading difficulties from ever occurring. The frontline of prevention is Tier I or the general education classroom. The classroom is also where students should receive high-quality content…