Suggestions for fostering independent reading include: (a) Give children books that are not too difficult. (b) Help them find books they will enjoy. (c) Encourage them to try many kinds of material. Although independent reading cannot substitute for teaching decoding, it improves reading comprehension and the habit of reading.
Learn how to teach children to write informational text through the use of focused read-alouds that include discussions of information book genre elements, features, and organizational structure. See examples of book compositions by second-grade authors that demonstrate how read-alouds can support young writers’ genre knowledge development.
These six short video clips give you the chance to watch and learn effective classroom-based assessment strategies. The video clips are from the Reading Rockets PBS television series, Launching Young Readers.
The following are sample charts you can use when assessing students informally in the classroom. Most of the assessments here should be given one-on-one.
An informal assessment of reading inventory, including what the assessment measures, when is should be assessed, examples of questions, and the age or grade at which the assessment should be mastered.
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.
Teachers’ grouping practices during reading instruction can serve as a critical component in facilitating effective implementation of reading instruction and inclusion of students with disabilities in general education classes. In this article, we provide an overview of the recent research on grouping practices (whole class, small group, pairs, one-on-one) during reading instruction for students with disabilities.
Is your school planning to implement student progress monitoring (SPM)? Are you thinking of using it in your classroom? If so, consider a number of factors to make SPM an integral part of classroom activities, rather than a series of isolated assessments unconnected to other parts of the learning experience. This brief offers some suggestions on how to use SPM in an integrated way.
Teachers often find it difficult to integrate writing and mathematics while honoring the integrity of both disciplines. In this article, the authors present two levels of integration that teachers may use as a starting point. The first level, writing without revision, can be worked into mathematics instruction quickly and readily. The second level, writing with revision, may take more time but enables teachers to connect the writing process more fully with mathematics instruction. Six examples are provided, including student work, in which teachers have successfully attended to the goals of both writing and mathematics.
These seven steps provide an approach to spelling instruction that encourages word study based on the words students experience in their daily writing activities. The goal of intentional spelling is to shift spelling instruction from a focus on the number of words spelled correctly to developing an understanding of how words work.
Interactive writing makes the writing process visual to the whole class. Reading literature is an excellent way to initiate interactive writing in the class, and the teacher can continue using literature as the class does interactive writing with any new book that is read throughout the year.
This study of first and second graders looked at teacher-led read alouds as a way to introduce science concepts. Results suggest that multiple exposures to a related concept across different stories gave students more time to build a mental representation of important ideas. This evidence suggests that moving beyond a single text as a source for building students’ understanding is an important instructional approach.
Letter writing can be fun, help children learn to compose written text, and provide handwriting practice — and letters are valuable keepsakes. This article contains activities to help children ages 5–9 put pen to paper and make someone’s day with a handwritten letter.
In this article written for Colorín Colorado, ELL expert Susan Lafond provides an introduction to the Common Core State Standards through a series of FAQs.
Children progress through certain stages of spelling development. Knowing this progression allows teachers to compel development through their instruction. Find out strategies for doing so in this article, such as promoting the use of invented spelling in the early stages.
Writing is a new way for young children to tell their stories and express themselves, but they are also learning valuable lessons about print concepts and letter-sound relationships when they put pen to paper.
Learn about the RISE reading program at the Johnson School in Charlottesville, Virginia. RISE features extended instructional time for all students in small groups, team teaching and staff collaboration, the use of a broad range of authentic texts, and a set of research-based instructional procedures. The program carefully monitors student achievement and supports teachers with extensive professional development.
Writing in journals can be a powerful strategy for students to respond to literature, gain writing fluency, dialogue in writing with another student or the teacher, or write in the content areas. While journaling is a form of writing in its own right, students can also freely generate ideas for other types of writing as they journal.Teachers can use literature that takes the form of a journal by reading excerpts and discussing them with students.
How can classroom reading instruction help poor readers — indeed, all students — become more like good readers? Research suggests that the answer may lie in providing students with instruction that both teaches them the comprehension strategies that work so well for good readers and helps them to develop the necessary metacognitive awareness of how and when to use these strategies.
After more than 20 years of research, class size continues to be at the forefront of the educational and political agenda for schools, school districts, and school boards. Here is a snapshot of what research tells us about class size and student achievement.
Like class size reduction, increasing instructional time has lots of common-sense appeal as mechanism for raising student achievement. But more time in school can be costly. These key lessons summarize the current research on different approaches to organizing school time and schedules, beginning with the obvious question: Does more time make a difference?
How much homework is too much? Not enough? Who should get it? These are just a few of the questions that have been debated over the years. While the research produces mixed results, there are some findings that can help inform decisions about homework.
Communities In Schools describes essential elements of good after-school programs so that research findings are accessible to practitioners. Included are key elements of program implementation.
