The Common State Standards require that students master increasingly complex informational text. But how can we enable students to meet this challenging goal? "We don't simply expect our students to hurtle themselves headlong into a piece of complex informational text alone," write Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher. Instead, teachers…

Reading experts have consistently cited the importance of independent reading, reading for pleasure, and fostering "a love of reading." Unfortunately, fanning the fire of fan readership is not so easy in the service of our clear-cut and standards-aligned curricula, except perhaps in small, carefully channeled doses. Moreover, the impetus for such…

This article examines how three Singaporean boys constructed their identities as global literate citizens through their reading practices in and out of school. An invisible network of resources contributed to their construction of a global literate identity relevant for local-global markets. The acquisition of a global literate identity as a form…

Can students read difficult but self-selected texts--and if so, how? In this article we describe what we learned about middle school students' use of background knowledge and specific vocabulary from interviews and surveys in our longitudinal study of magazine reading habits. Then we discuss the implications of these findings for structuring…

In this study, I used individual growth modeling methods to examine the English word-learning trajectories of adolescent students (N = 278) whose parents speak English at home (n = 210) and those whose parents speak a language other than English (n = 68). Sixth- (n = 130) and seventh-grade (n = 148) students attending an urban middle school took…

The Accelerated Reader program was designed by Renaissance Learning to increase students' motivation to read and students' achievement in reading; however, a review of the literature reveals inconsistent findings about its outcomes. The Renaissance Learning company reports several research studies on their website that suggest the program is…

The United States' Public Education system shared concerns regarding declining achievement results across the nation. Numerous research studies suggested significant correlations to various variables, such as, SES (Socio-Economic Status), LEP (Limited English Proficiency), IEP (Individualized Educational Programs), ethnicity, and student mobility.…

It is common for many students with developmental disabilities to demonstrate characteristics of emergent readers beyond kindergarten and first grade, even if they are members of classes that offer many rich literacy opportunities. This article proposes a lesson frame for intensive reading instruction for students with developmental disabilities…

For many teachers of middle school and high school, the greatest challenge they face in trying to help struggling readers improve their skills can be students' self-perception. When young people do not see themselves as members of the "literacy club," it is not just a simple matter of persuading them that becoming a fluent reader is…

This article discusses an exemplary EL program grounded in research-based literacy strategies. World War II and the Holocaust served as the backdrop for a program that stressed vocabulary and concept development, and then connected that understanding to reading and writing. The "five streams" used to address literacy competencies included reading…

Background/Context: The pressure to understand "what works" to advance adolescents' reading development has increased as the Common Core State Standards' call for youth to grapple with a range of complex texts. While we have learned more about promising reading programs and interventions for adolescent students in schools, few…

The purpose of the present study was to develop an instrument to measure reading during in-school independent reading (ISIR). Procedures to establish validity and reliability of the instrument included videotaping and observing students during ISIR, gathering feedback from literacy experts, establishing interrater reliability, crosschecking…

The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of a program that offered sustained strategic reading instruction on reading abilities of third and fourth graders. The study was conducted among 1,469 children from 40 schools in the Netherlands. Schools were randomly assigned to either the experimental or control group. Multilevel…

In recent decades, researchers have indicated that U.S. schools have underexposed elementary grade students to informational text. The increased exposure to this genre should be a top instructional priority. In the present study, we explored 46 third-grade students' attitudes toward and perceptions of informational text. Using three data sources…

This qualitative study examined the amount of time that fourth and fifth grade teachers devoted to literacy instruction within the time allotted to them within the daily literacy block. Prior research of the literacy block focused largely on primary grades (Allington, McGill-Franzen et a1.,2010; Cunningham & Allington, 2003; Morrow, 1992);…