A question being asked by teachers across the country is, How can I teach students to acquire both the skills and knowledge demanded by the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) while simultaneously guiding them to read challenging texts such as those presented in Appendix B of the CCSS? Answering this invites the integration of ideas and the…

This report describes a program for improving reading comprehension skills in order to heighten understanding of materials covered in class and performance on activities and exams. The targeted population consisted of first-, fifth-, and eighth-grade students in a large, lower- to middle-class community located in central Illinois. The problems in…

Discusses how interactive, whole class techniques (using a student-generated Big Book adaptation of "Corduroy") improved the reading skills of high risk first grade readers. Describes several activities, including sight word strategies, decoding techniques, and word processing, and suggests 27 Big Books for use with these activities. (MM)