Ten sixth-grade teachers and 60 students (14 with reading disabilities, 17 low-achieving students, and 29 typical students) participated in a four-month professional development and intervention program designed to enhance reading outcomes using word identification, fluency, and content area comprehension strategies. All three groups improved in…

This article describes a writing activity that is employed after graded exams are handed back to students. Students are asked to reflect on their performance and to demonstrate understanding of mathematics related to the exam and/or unit of instruction. The article provides examples of student writing, scoring rubrics, and suggestions for…

Struggling readers at the middle level need help using reading strategies effectively in order to become strategic readers. Middle level teachers need both to model and to teach how to use a variety of reading strategies that will help struggling readers become independent. This article deals with the development of the KWHHL strategy. The KWHHL…

Many struggling readers, students with English as a second language, and children with disabilities do not engage in the strategies that good readers use when reading for understanding. Reading comprehension depends upon the students' ability to successfully use strategies to monitor and control their own comprehension. Teachers need to help…

This study investigated the efficacy of a method of parent training and parent reading tutoring that built on past research. Parents of five first-grade children who were reading below grade level participated. Parents were trained to implement a tutoring procedure that included modeling, practice, phonics, fluency building, accuracy building,…

The teaching of reading has come to be regarded as one of the highest priority areas in modern education because schools have been failing to teach reading effectively to large numbers of students who progress to secondary school without having achieved a working competency in this basic skill. Much of the burden of reading instruction has fallen…

Purpose: Guided reading is a common practice recommended for children in the early stages of literacy development. While experts agree that oral reading facilitates literacy skills, controversy exists concerning which corrective feedback strategies are most effective. The purpose of this study was to compare feedback procedures stemming from 2…

In this article, the author narrates how her son's communication skills have progressed through the use of photographic visuals. Her son, Ryan, was diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) when he was aged two years and seven months. At this time he was unresponsive to his name, had virtually no words and definitely no comprehension of…

Using symbolic algebra to represent and solve linear equations is one of the expectations within the "Algebra" content standard for the 6-8-grade band in the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) "Principles and Standards for School Mathematics" (2000). Students' understanding of these concepts, even before a formal algebra course,…

Although most principals do not teach reading, it is critical that they know how reading should be taught, especially in the primary grades. A growing body of research gives an increasingly clear picture of effective reading programs. It indicates that most young children need instruction in five reading areas: phonemic awareness, phonics,…

Reporting on a piece of small-scale research, this article considers the notion of a community of enquiry within the context of a Year 2 class. It suggests that the community of enquiry approach can provide a framework to support young children, comprehension in literacy and also has clear benefits in regard to young children's citizenship…

The results of previous educational research raise some questions about the efficacy of conventional teaching strategies and point to a need for using teaching strategies that explicitly take into account misconceptions students bring to the classes or acquire during the teaching-learning process. Accordingly, this article presents efforts to…

This study examines the effect of training in think alouds on literal and higher-order reading comprehension. Thirty-two (n = 32) eighth grade students of English as a foreign language (EFL) participated in the study. The participants were randomly assigned to control and experimental conditions. Descriptive statistics, correlation coefficients,…

Teaching thinking skills has been characterised by the teacher-directed "embedded", "infusion" and "bolt-on" approaches, for which outcomes have been mixed. Peer tutoring in thinking skills offers a fourth way of wide applicability. This study evaluated such a method (Paired Thinking) in a high school setting. A…

Extensive reading is an approach to teaching reading that has been utilized with English as a Second Language (ESL) learners, but not widely used in the adult literacy classroom. This article investigates whether this approach can be utilized in a classroom for adults who have difficulty with reading. A description of our implementation of…