A teacher educator shares how a school community engaged family in parent-child interactive reading experiences around big ideas found in diverse literature to deepen inclusion beyond the classroom.

Story Talk is an evidence-based language intervention that has produced significant increases in children's vocabulary (Wasik & Hindman, 2020). This paper begins with a discussion of the importance of language development in learning to read, which is the basis for Story Talk. Next, a description of Story Talk components and the strategies…

In this article we report the results and classroom implications of a qualitative study that explored third-grade students' interactions with each other as they partner read. Participants included 10 students, each of whom engaged in three readings with a partner during recorded observations. All students had been taught structures for partner…

Informational texts present complex content using language that is simultaneously technical, abstract, dense, and authoritative. This article describes practical strategies to support teachers in using informational picture books to prepare upper elementary school students for navigating the complex language demands necessitated by expository…

How can primary literacy teachers effectively identify, adapt, and incorporate developmentally appropriate technologies to support their students' reading development? This article reports results from a case study attempting to digitize a classroom literacy practice--close reading--for Year 2 students. It suggests that digital tools can…

Students in the 3rd and 4th grade often encounter what has been called a reading "slump" when their class curriculums increasingly ask them to comprehend and learn from texts. Students are more likely to struggle if they have not been offered sufficient opportunities to build world and domain knowledge and engage in challenging…

Teaching for theme is one aspect of reading comprehension that is often elusive for both teachers and students. Specifically, teachers are challenged with elevating students' thinking from the plot level to a more abstract level when teaching for theme understanding. Students are challenged with transitioning between the story world and the real…

Changes in technology and reading habits over the last decade have ushered in a new informational landscape. The Internet has become the central means by which children and adults form understandings of the world. Since readers on the Internet choose from a nearly unlimited selection of websites, they play a more active role in determining which…

"Little" words often carry complex meanings. Pronoun resolution is an essential component of comprehension. Skilled readers work to maintain text cohesion (i.e., they resolve the pronouns as needed.) Less proficient readers often are not as proficient in resolving pronouns. Limited pronoun resolution limits comprehension. This article…

Responding to recent challenges to Clay's Running Records (2019) and their analysis using a three-cueing system, the author examines this reading assessment from an additive perspective of both bottom-up and top-down orientations of reading instruction. Endorsing their inclusion among classroom reading assessments, the author navigates the tension…

Reading involves and is influenced by many factors, which makes reading difficult to understand, teach, and explain to parents, policymakers, and other stakeholders. A metaphor of driving, which likens reading to an everyday practice, demystifies complexities inherent in reading. Both reading and driving are active, strategic processes. Just as…

Because dual-language books (DLBs) print the entire text in two languages nearby on the page, they have great potential for supporting children's biliteracy development by providing contexts to compare/contrast languages. However, little is known about how children read DLBs independently and how they may/may not use such characteristics to…

The category of nonfiction picture books has changed in the past few decades, putting more emphasis on engaging writing styles, attention to accuracy, and using synergic relations between images and texts. As a result of this shift, the strategies taught to students for reading nonfiction picture books must change. The author presents five…

Motivating reluctant readers has always been a challenge. The author designed a conference structure in which explicit evidence of the student's progress is presented. The structure includes a review by the teacher of the student's prior reading level and documentation of the student's current skills. A conference with the student follows in which…

Learning about being a reader is more than teaching phonics. A pilot study of shared picture book reading in early childhood education as a means to support young children in developing a broader understanding of literacy, in addition to phonics and phonological awareness, is discussed. The Early Language and Literacy Classroom Observation (ELLCO)…