According to research, some instructional methods for teaching reading are more effective than others. Find out what the National Reading Panel’s review of the research revealed about best practices in reading instruction.
Different book leveling systems each have unique ways of describing the age- and grade-level appropriateness of books. This chart provides equivalency information across six leveling systems: Basal level/PALS, Guided Reading, DRA, Rigby PM, Reading Recovery, and Lexile.
All kindergarten, first-grade, and second-grade teachers — as well as reading interventionists — should teach students to keep their eyes on the words on the page so that they do not have to later struggle with breaking a habit that hampers effective, efficient reading.
Research about how much children lose ground over the summer is well documented, but kids don’t have to lose ground over the summer. In fact, you can encourage your child to have a summer of fun and learning with these five free and easy things to do.
Here are some concrete techniques that children can use to study spelling. This article also shares guidelines teachers and students should keep in mind, because practice makes permanent.
Many students with learning or reading disabilities find homework challenging. Here are five research-based strategies that teachers can use to help students.
Much vocabulary is learned without formal teaching. We gain words from conversation, observation, television/media, and reading. However, research shows that explicitly teaching vocabulary can measurably improve reading comprehension — if we teach the right words well enough. Here are five key principles to effective vocabulary instruction.
It’s a great time for children’s nonfiction! In recent years, these books have evolved into five distinct categories. Learn more about the characteristics of traditional nonfiction, browse-able nonfiction, narrative nonfiction, expository literature, and active nonfiction.
April 22nd is Earth Day, an annual celebration dedicated to environmental awareness. Discover five ways you and your family can participate in Earth Day while also practicing reading and writing skills.
Too often, teachers say that the professional development they receive provides limited application to their everyday world of teaching and learning. This five-phase framework that can help create comprehensive, ongoing, and — most importantly — meaningful professional development.
From Communities in Schools, this article profiles five after-school programs that have been shown to be effective in rigorous independent evaluations.
This Bright Ideas article recommends five specific and measurable actions teachers can implement to assist ELL learning in the upcoming year. The resource section has links to helpful articles and websites for further support.
Your child may be at a school where they are using an approach called “flipped classroom” or “flipped lesson.” Find out more about the concept, and three ways that you can support flipped learning at home.
The best strategy for developing reading fluency is to provide your students with many opportunities to read the same passage orally several times. To do this, you should first know what to have your students read. Second, you should know how to have your students read aloud repeatedly.
Fluency develops gradually over time and through practice. At the earliest stage of reading development, students’ oral reading is slow and labored because students are just learning to “break the code” – to attach sounds to letters and to blend letter sounds into recognizable words.
If you’ve been around classrooms and teachers, you’ve probably heard the term “fluency.” Fluency is something worth knowing more about! Read on to find out what it is and how to develop it in your young learner.
View the results of the updated 2017 study on oral reading fluency (ORF) by Jan Hasbrouck and Gerald Tindal, with compiled ORF norms for grades 1-6. You’ll also find an analysis of how the 2017 norms differ from the 2006 norms.
Being a fluent reader is an important part of being a successful reader. Here is an overview of considerations related to fluency, and techniques teachers can use for promoting fluency in the classroom.
Meet some elementary school educators who have worked under some very difficult conditions and have found ways to support academic achievement at their schools. They believe that every child has a right to learn and be successful.
Anticipating the beginning of the school year can create anxiety for both family members and for their children on the autism spectrum. Get tips to help you be a proactive and positive advocate for your child.
“Unexpected schools” — high-performing and rapidly improving schools with large populations of children of color and children living in poverty — demonstrate that they can overcome barriers of poverty and discrimination by making improvement a shared task rather than a solitary one. Many of these schools have achieved academic success by systematically building caring relationships and tackling problems together — unpacking standards, mapping out the curriculum, and developing lessons and common assessments together.
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.
