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.

Teaching reading can be simplistically divided into two sections: learning how to read, known as decoding, and deriving meaning from the printed word, known as comprehension. Many educators still hold to the position that these skills should be taught linearly with an emphasis on comprehension lagging considerably behind the teaching of decoding.…

In educational settings, students read for multiple purposes, such as preparing for an exam, practicing a new reading strategy, writing an essay, and more. Because reading is a goal-directed activity, providing students with task instructions can help them create goals for reading and develop a plan to meet these goals. In the current experiment,…

This research project aims to answer the following questions: 1) How do the reading strategies students learn in their classes transfer from college to their professional lives, 2) What reading strategies are being taught in college courses that alumni consider to be most beneficial for their careers post-graduation, and what reading practices do…

Teachers in any discipline where reading matters should practice a robust scaffolding pedagogy to teach critical reading, in contrast to the more common but less direct approaches that often leave students to learn or not learn these skills themselves. In this essay, I describe how to adapt established methods for teaching writing (including…

Purpose: This study investigated the effects of early shared reading and access to books on reading vocabulary in middle childhood and the pathways associated with later reading success. Method: Path analysis of data from four waves of a national longitudinal study of children (N = 7,751) was used to investigate direct and indirect effects of…

This research examined how teacher efficacy impacts the delivery of instructional practices. Teachers' self-efficacy influences critical academic outcomes and well-being in the working environment. Teacher efficacy is their belief in their ability to effectively handle the tasks, obligations, and challenges related to their professional activity.…

The role of the teacher, specifically teacher craft, is central to engaging students in effective reading instruction. However, the science of reading has revealed that the content taught is also important to reading acquisition. Although the science of reading was aggregated some two decades ago to result in what became known as the five big…

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…

In some academic topics, like physics, students are required to comprehend tough books and acquire the knowledge contained in them. The majority of content-specific teachers typically feel awkward employing explicit tactics to boost student comprehension, despite the fact that they are adept at teaching the subjects covered in their areas. As a…

Teachers understand the importance of think-alouds, yet research shows that think-alouds may be used ineffectively in practice. Often, this results from the difficulty of explicitly sharing the inner thought processes of competent readers and writers in transferable ways for students. To our knowledge, a tool for helping preservice teachers…

Applying sociological conceptualisations of temporality in the context of families, this article explores shared reading between parents and young children. The research draws on interviews with a sample of 29 parents/carers with pre-school children (predominantly mothers) from diverse backgrounds. Reading with young children provides an…

Only 35% of fourth graders in the United States can read at the proficient level, and only 34% of eighth graders can read proficiently (National Assessment of Educational Progress [NAEP], 2022). The purpose of this study was to determine how preservice teachers (PSTs) describe their experience of the methodology of teaching reading in their…

High-quality professional development can lead to increased and sustained implementation of evidence-based practices. This study examined the effects of practice-based coaching paired with scripted supports on a paraeducator's use of shared book reading strategies. Indirectly evaluated were impacts on the expressive and receptive vocabulary…