A century of research has shown that culturally relevant, responsive, and sustaining literacy teaching is essential to teaching all students well and is especially crucial for students of color, who most often attend urban schools. The authors share one innovative and culturally sustaining literacy practice that critically centers kindergarten and…

Literacy assessment scores in an urban 5th grade classroom left much to be desired. In this diverse classroom population, typical urban distractions such as poverty, crime, English as a second language, and lack of parental support contribute to extremely low literacy scores. This classroom study examined the effects of implementing clickers, a…

Literacy engagement is critical to the development of reading proficiency. Yet, many students, having had varied and often limited experiences with formal literacy practices, begin schooling in an interstitial state that might more accurately be called "pre-engagement" where though eager to learn, they are unsure how to fully focus on…

Using Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) as a theoretical framework, a team of university staff and educators at a traditionally under-performing urban elementary school built a collaboration aimed at enhancing writing instruction. The current qualitative research study, which was part of this larger project, focused on biography writing in Eva…

Based on a longitudinal ethnographic and phenomenological inquiry, this paper explores the change process that led Quest from being a marginal school to one of the highest achieving elementary schools in their large, urban district. Moving from textbook-led instruction to an inquiry-based curriculum allowed teachers to rethink their pedagogy and…

This column brings to the attention of "RT" readers the hot topic of redesigning teacher education programs. Featured are interviews with professionals involved in a statewide redesign initiative in Tennessee, the Ready2Teach (R2T) program. The interviews highlight major changes in how teacher education programs are being transformed to…

Recent research meta-analyses on the literacy education of children who are English-language learners (ELLs) were reviewed. The author discusses instructional implications that (1) are strongly supported by research, (2) are likely to be true, given the research evidence, and (3) need more research before recommendations can be made. (Contains 1…

This paper describes the lessons learned from a five-year project to develop urban literacy coaches in a large, diverse, metropolitan school system. The narrative begins by reporting on the progress of the schools in the project, which documents gains exceeding both the state and the district gains. It further describes survey data from principals…

In an attempt to bring readers "on-the-ground" insights about effective urban literacy instruction, the authors interviewed three literacy educators who have extensive experience with learners in urban school environments. Each of them has taught literacy and developed teaching practices for urban schools, as well as conducted action research to…

This article features an overview of two case studies, each featuring a successful literacy coach and the context of the urban elementary school in which she worked. The article describes improvements in reading and writing instruction and improvements in overall school culture that study participants attributed to the influence of these coaches.…

A history of poverty and low academic achievement in four urban schools pointed to the need to implement an early intervention focused on oral language and emergent literacy. The Kindergarten Early Literacy Tutoring (KELT) Program was designed to target senior (5 year old) kindergarten students most at-risk. The intervention consisted of an extra…

Recent research supports what many teachers already know---that students with a developed understanding that words are combinations of meaningful parts tend to have better vocabularies and stronger reading comprehension performance. These meaningful parts are called morphemes, and the study of them is called morphology. Teaching students to…

Poetry should be an integral part of children's learning in elementary school. This article explains the classroom structures and routines through which third-grade students in an inner-city school became familiar with poetic language and learned to appreciate the artistry of poetry. Most of the students were struggling readers. Reading poetry…

An innovative, technology-enabled elementary school literacy program was implemented in a large urban school district. The program revolved around having student-adult pen pals read the same books and correspond about them. Statistical comparisons showed that program classrooms outperformed students in comparison classrooms on the SAT-9…

A reading specialist who worked in a high-poverty urban elementary school that initially did not have an exemplary reading program provides seven lessons that can serve as a guidepost for other reading specialists. Several approaches that led to improved reading achievement of upper elementary school children are described. The seven lessons, when…