Presents reading strategies which use "flag words" (enumerative, superlative, transitional, and other flags) to help students identify, extract, and organize important information from text. (SR)

Presents SCAIT (Select key words, Complete sentences, Accept final statements, Infer, and Think at the applied level), a study technique to develop high school students' higher comprehension skills when reading content area material. (SR)

Discusses teaching strategies to present the two most basic ways of organizing information about a steady state phenomenon: pictorial knowledge models and diagrammatic knowledge models. Presents ways of organizing these types of information according to known points of reference and observation. (SR)

Presents a teaching strategy which uses points of reference (or basic underlying concepts) to help students understand definitions, descriptions, and comparisons/contrasts, and models its use. Notes that understanding the importance of points of reference is one of the first steps in the technique called "knowledge modeling." (SR)

Reviews 31 nonfiction tradebooks that have unusual content or clever formats used by the author or illustrator. (MG)

Suggests 10 classroom activities that use music to teach reading, writing, and content materials to primary children. (RS)

Describes a way to teach summarization that can be applied to all content areas, and explains the factors that make it effective. Includes written guidelines to follow as the class learns how to write summaries. Notes that a formal test of these classroom procedures showed that repeated references and generalization were both effective in…

Describes how the author intentionally exploited students' strengths with linguistic play to allow them to use those strengths in processing their learning through literature and textual response in various content areas. Shows how informed teachers can use inventive language-play (especially limericks) as an important literacy-related strategy…

Considers how picture books can be used in content classes to motivate secondary-level students. Present a bibliography of approximately 90 picture books (published in the 1990s) and a rationale for their use with middle school and high school students. (SG)

Reading nonfiction requires students to use different techniques to: (1) navigate multiple starting and stopping points; (2) decipher charts, tables, and other graphic elements; and (3) be comfortable skipping about and scanning through text. This article offers simple and effective strategies that can facilitate successful reading in science.

This study evaluated the effectiveness of a comprehension program integrated with social studies instruction designed for at-risk second graders. The program included instruction in cause-effect text structure, emphasizing clue words, generic questions, graphic organizers, and the close analysis of specially constructed cause-effect target…

How do secondary teacher candidates learn about their responsibility for the ongoing literacy development of their students? How do they gain the understandings and knowledge of instructional practices necessary to meet this responsibility within their content teaching? The authors document three stages of development their students progress…

"The Geography Teacher" provides hands-on reference and educative material for K-12 Geography teachers. The journal also pioneers innovative ideas for contemporary teaching methods, including lesson plans. This issue contains the following: (1) Ask Dr. de Blij (Dr. Harm de Blij); (2) Improving Geographic Understanding with a State Atlas…

Eight physical science textbooks were analyzed for coverage on acids, bases, and neutralization. At the level of the text, clarity and coherence of statements were investigated. The conceptual framework for this topic was represented in a concept map which was used as a coding tool for tracing concepts and links present in textbooks. Cognitive…

Even when the readability levels of content passages are equal, cloze shows some content areas make easier reading. (RB)