All students can benefit from a deeper understanding of how our language works. "Playing With Language" shows elementary school educators (K-6) how to think about, talk about, and manipulate language out of context. This cognitive skill set, known as metalinguistic awareness, is an important component of reading ability. This practical…

Research shows that cognitively demanding text-based writing assignments increase students' reading comprehension skills and analytic writing competencies. In this article, we describe the steps that upper-elementary grade teachers can take to develop cognitively demanding assignments that build these higher-level literacy skills and put students…

Primary-grade students' experiences with text should prepare them to critically read an extensive range of text types throughout their schooling and career, a primary goal of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). However, research demonstrates that narrative text overshadows other text types in the primary grades. The purpose of this…

The challenges of understanding how reading abilities vary within the classroom can be daunting. This article offers techniques to organize a variety of assessment data to give teachers a clear picture of individual achievement, how students compare with one another, and how reliably various assessment instruments yield an accurate picture of…

The purpose of swimming is to travel safely through water; the purpose of reading is to construct meaning. Both skills require perseverance from the student and patience from the teacher. Not having the necessary swimming skills may result in tragic consequences. Not having the ability to read and understand text--although probably not fatal--will…

Teachers, parents, and librarians are constantly looking for methods and materials that engage students as readers and motivate them to increase the time they spend reading. In this article we describe findings from a study of middle schoolers' magazine reading habits that gave us a close look at the power of magazines as supplemental supports for…

In this article, the authors propose a revised way of thinking about reading levels, one that promotes a wider and more flexible view of teacher decision making about the use of leveled texts in classrooms. They share five key principles to consider when looking at the use of instruction that involves matching leveled materials with readers.…

Homework is an instructional staple for most classroom teachers; however, considerable debate over the effectiveness of homework has been at the center of discussions among researchers, administrators, educators, parents, and students. Rather than continuing the battle as to whether or not homework enriches learning, it appears the more…

Many reading problems are caused by using the wrong teaching methods. This article advocates using a reading style inventory and matching the teaching method to the student's reading style. The author holds copyright to this article. (Contains 3 figures.)

This resource is a compilation of three documents that support the teaching of spelling in today's schools: a discussion of "Why Spelling Instruction Matters", a checklist for evaluating a spelling program, and tables of Common Core State Standards that are linked to spelling instruction. "Why Spelling Instruction Matters"…

"Reading in Asian Languages" is rich with information about how literacy works in the non-alphabetic writing systems (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) used by hundreds of millions of people and refutes the common Western belief that such systems are hard to learn or to use. The contributors share a comprehensive view of reading as construction…

Teacher-composed digital stories can assist an English-language learner in accessing academic reading while aiding in the learner's acquisition of academic language. Acknowledging the synergy between oral language and reading comprehension for English learners, every teacher of reading to English learners must also be a teacher of oral and aural…

Motivating children to read on their own has been less of a priority than improving reading achievement in recent years, but many teachers are still asking, "How do I get my students to want to read?" The omission of motivation as a major component of reading instruction by the National Reading Panel (2000) was interpreted by many schools as a…

Literacy has become much more than just the ability to read: recent literature related to literacy instruction suggests that an essential goal is to develop in students the ability to think deeply about what they read and to express themselves accurately and expressively in all contexts. There is a growing acceptance of the importance of lifelong…

Background knowledge is a critical relationship in reading comprehension. Includes a discussion on the classroom application of background knowledge in reading instruction. (MD)