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Reading Motivation: What the Research Says
Researchers have identified a number of factors important to reading motivation including self-concept and value of reading, choice; time spent talking about books, types of text available, and the use of incentives.
Speaking Is Natural; Reading and Writing Are Not
Human brains are naturally wired to speak; they are not naturally wired to read and write. With teaching, children typically learn to read at about age 5 or 6 and need several years to master the skill.
English is a layer-cake language. Not only is it organized to represent sounds, syllables, and morphemes, but its spellings are derived from several languages that were amalgamated over hundreds of years due to political and social changes in Great Britain.
English orthography, or the English spelling system, may not be as transparent or easy to spell as Spanish, Italian, or Serbo-Croatian, but it's not crazy! Most English word spellings can be explained and most English words do follow spelling patterns.
Learning Disabilities: An Overview
Learning disabilities (LD) come in several forms. Learn more about them, how they're identified — and what type of instruction benefits students with LD.
For Students Who Are Not Yet Fluent, Silent Reading Is Not the Best Use of Classroom Time
Teachers do their best to improve students’ fluency, but sometimes the information they have to work with is incomplete and, therefore, leads them down the wrong path. For example, silent reading or 'Round Robin' reading seem like good ways to improve fluency. But, in fact, increasing fluency requires more practice, more support, and more guided oral reading than either of these strategies can deliver.
Reading Software: Finding the Right Program
With the range and variety of commercial software products on the shelves today, how can an educator or parent choose a program that will most benefit a particular student? Where are product reviews that can inform the decision?
A Quick Guide to Selecting Great Informational Books for Young Children
Exposing children to a variety of informational text will stimulate development of background knowledge, vocabulary, and comprehension skills. In this article, take an imaginary trip to a children's museum and learn how to choose quality, high-interest informational books for young readers.
Bright Ideas for Back-to-School Night…and Beyond
It's time to head back to school. And while kids are stuffing their backpacks with new school supplies, we're packing a different sort of bag here at Reading Rockets — one filled with resources to help make one of the most important evening events of the school year really sparkle — Back-to-School Night.
Anyone at any age can learn a second language after a first language is already established, but it takes a lot of practice. Second language acquisition often happens when a child who speaks a language other than English goes to school for the first time. This American Speech-Language-Hearing Association brief looks at the best way to teach a second language and how speech professionals can help.
Teacher Knowledge Matters in Supporting Young Readers
Knowing what teachers know and how they practice is necessary to ensure that there are professionals in every classroom meeting the diverse needs of students. Researchers evaluated case studies from a group of teachers and revealed four different levels of knowledge, indicating that future staff development needs to be differentiated and individualized.
It might seem that evaluating information online (just one form of "new literacy") and reading a book (more of a foundational literacy) are pretty much the same thing. But there are differences that, when brought into the classroom and incorporated into curricula, are enriching the educational experiences of many K-12 students. Many administrators are beginning to recognize the need to revise their districts' media skills instruction.
Where can your school, library, or community group find free or low-cost books for kids? There are a number of national organizations and programs that can help!
Three Things Research Tells Us about Interventions for Struggling Readers
This article, excerpted from a larger guidance document from the Center on Instruction, looks at what research tells us about helping students who read below grade level, and highlights the following findings: 1) schools must provide varied instructional support, based on the degree and nature of the student's difficulty; 2) it is important for students to learn comprehension strategies, and strategy instruction should be coordinated between literacy specialists and content-area teachers; and 3) more research is needed to prove which instructional improvements are really effective.
What Does Research Tell Us About Teaching Reading to English Language Learners?
In this article, a seasoned ELL teacher synthesizes her own classroom experience and the findings of the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth to make recommendations for effective literacy instruction of ELL students.
Do you think your child or student might have dyslexia? "Dyslexia Basics," a factsheet by International Dyslexia Association," tells you the definition, symptoms, causes and effects. Find out how to help.
Many school districts have adopted instructional coaching as a model for teachers' professional development. This brief offers guidance on how school leaders can tailor the most promising coaching strategies to the needs of their schools.
Do you spend most of the fall reviewing what was taught last spring? Help prevent summer reading loss by finding out why it happens and encouraging family literacy while kids are at home for the summer.
Dyslexia and the Brain: What Does Current Research Tell Us?
The identification of a child with dyslexia is a difficult process, but there are ways that parents and teachers can learn more about the reading difficulty and support the child’s learning.