In this article, I showcase an informational text reading comprehension unit that centers on text features commonly found in science textbooks. I taught this unit to a sixth-grade class and highlighted the work samples of three focal students here. The overarching question that guided this work was as follows: How can I focus my instruction on…

According to a 2010 report by ACT, "Only 31 percent of students are performing at a college-and-career reading level with respect to successfully understanding complex text" (p. 5). This statistic demonstrates what educators know: Middle and high school students face numerous challenges in reading, understanding, connecting to, and…

This study investigated the effectiveness of reading only, regular note taking, and paragraph summaries for questions at the six levels of Bloom's taxonomy. Paragraph summaries were most effective at the application and analysis levels and least effective at the synthesis and evaluation levels. (Author/LMO)

This book provides directions and sample activities to help parents teach their children to follow an easy system for study reading: set clear purposes for study; ask targeted questions; read quickly for specific information; summarize effectively; and gather information from charts and tables. The first section, Flexibility and Reading Speed,…