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Providing Proximal Rewards: Rethinking Reading Rewards and Motivation The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-04-18 Lorilynn Brandt, Douglas S. Gardner, Sarah K. Clark
Research shows a general declining trend in reading motivation as students progress through their schooling experience. This qualitative study examines how adjusting practices of rewarding reading can improve reading motivation among students. Teachers are trained in the principles of motivation and introduced to the proximal reward theory (Gambrell, 1996). They are then challenged to come up with
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Baseball, Presidents, and State Test Passages: Considering Gendered Knowledge in Literacy Research, Curricula, and Assessments The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-04-13 Dan Reynolds, Courtney Hattan
The role of knowledge and reading comprehension has seen a recent explosion of attention from researchers, journalists, and policy advocates. Much of this discourse describes knowledge in neutral terms such as knowledge of “the world”. That knowledge of the world, however, is woven into the fabric of the gendered world we live in and its gendered education systems. In this article, we delve into three
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Using Intentional Pairing and Peer Tutoring during Structured Literacy Activities in Inclusion Classrooms The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-04-11 K. Lea Alexander
More and more students with learning disabilities and other diverse learners are placed for instruction in general education classrooms, which often leaves teachers grappling to design successful peer interactions and literacy activities to meet the needs of all learners in their classrooms. As the shift is made to align literacy instruction to the Science of Reading (SoR), it is vital for teachers
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When Writers Lead the Lesson: Students as Teachers in Elementary Composing Spaces The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-04-11 Lindsey W. Rowe, Julie Johnson
The purpose of this article is to describe how teachers implemented student‐led minilessons in writing instruction. We use observations from two elementary classrooms to provide examples of student‐led instruction focused on digital and translingual composing. Through these examples, we outline three steps teachers can take to support student‐led composing instruction: (1) look for innovative student
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Toward a Multilingual Perspective on Reading: Aligning Emergent Bilinguals' Resources with Theories of Reading and Implications for Instruction The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-04-11 Laura Ascenzi‐Moreno
This article puts forth a multilingual perspective on reading to counter the prevailing monolingualism that dominates reading instruction. First, it brings theories together to develop a cohesive understanding of teaching reading with emergent bilinguals at the center. Second, it illuminates ways educators can design reading instruction, which is responsive to and normalizes emergent bilinguals' resources
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Bridging Literacy Theory with Practice: Differentiated Academic Service Learning Projects with Children's Literature The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-04-03 Anne Katz
This academic service learning initiative enabled teacher education candidates to create research‐based family literacy activities around a diverse selection of children’s books. Each project included a detailed parent or caregiver letter, which provides an overview of the family literacy activity; materials and props; step‐by‐step procedures; prompting questions; ideas for differentiation to meet
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Building Mental Models of Writers: Writing Aloud in Writing Instruction The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-04-03 Sharon M. Pratt, Tracey S. Hodges
The act of writing involves decision‐making that can be challenging for elementary students as they choose ideas, organization structures, and audiences for whom to share their messages. Teachers can support students in their decision‐making through providing explicit explanation of the metacognitive decision‐making that occurs at each stage of the writing process, using various strategies and skills
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Supporting Early Biliteracy in English‐Medium Classrooms: Initiatives for Family Engagement and Instructional Innovations The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-04-03 Mary Amanda (Mandy) Stewart, Douha Abbasher, Melanie Aide Aguirre Jaimes, Monica Hughes
Since many bilingual students do not have access to bilingual education, this article illustrates how to collaborate with families and create instructional innovations to support biliteracy for all young bilinguals. The authors implemented a Biliteracy Jumpstart for 6 weeks at the beginning of school year culminating in Family Biliteracy Day with one linguistically diverse Pre‐K classroom.
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Evidence‐Based Practices to Enliven Integrated Reading‐to‐Writing Instruction The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-04-03 Kathleen A. J. Mohr, Cindy D. Jones, Kalie Chamberlain, Kara DeCoursey, Marla Robertson, Catherine Summers, Megan Bagley
Despite strong support for integrating reading and writing instruction, writing practice is often crowded out of the schedule in elementary classrooms. To promote increased emphasis on writing, a working group of literacy researchers highlights three writing goals and six research‐based reading‐to‐writing practices to enliven instruction with more integrated opportunities. The three featured goals
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Family Belonging Backpacks: Deepening Equity and Inclusion with Diverse Literature The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-04-01 Michele Byrne
A teacher educator shares how a school community engaged family in parent–child interactive reading experiences around big ideas found in diverse literature to deepen inclusion beyond the classroom.
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Selecting a Literacy Intervention and Planning for Implementation: A Guide The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-03-30 Colleen E. Whittingham, Paola Pilonieta, Erin K. Washburn
Evidence‐based core instruction partnered with evidence‐based supplemental interventions are vital for students' literacy learning, particularly for students who need additional support (Petscher et al., 2020). Identifying instructional materials that reflect the translation of effective practices is challenging, (Solari et al., 2020) and made trickier by an abundance of commercialized and packaged
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Matching or Clashing? Teachers Analyzing Picturebooks Using an Equity‐Focused Text Analysis Tool The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-03-30 Audrey Lucero
As of May 2022, 42 state legislatures had introduced bills that would limit how (and whether) teachers can address inequities based on race, gender, and other marginalized identities. At the same time, book bans are becoming increasingly common across the country. Given the importance of providing children opportunities to critically engage with texts from a variety of perspectives and representing
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Strengthening Students' Reading Motivation and Engagement with C.A.R.E. The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-03-30 Vassiliki Zygouris‐Coe
Over the past two years, as a professor of reading education, I have listened to, collaborated, and met with various PreK–12 educators virtually and in person. I collected questions, comments, successes, and challenges related to the ongoing transitions and demands of this post‐pandemic era on teachers, students, and parents. The topics of student motivation to read and engagement in reading remain
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“Are you Gonna Help us with Writing?” Empowering Writers though Dialogue Journaling The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-03-27 Leah Bryars, Bethanie Pletcher
Before ever entering a formal educational setting, children use writing to make themselves known. Yet by the time students reach the fourth grade, only a small minority of students demonstrate writing skills considered competent by national standards. By this time in their school career, many have begun to internalize that they are poor writers and have become apprehensive toward writing tasks and
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The Class Podcast: Reimagining the Literary Essay to Honor Student Identity and Agency The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-03-26 Krista Senatore
The author, a fifth-grade teacher, describes how she reimagined the literary essay curriculum to amplify student identity, agency, and voice by creating a class podcast. Because of their similar structure and organization, teaching students literary analysis and interpretation through podcast writing offered entry into literary essays. The author provides the steps for teaching students how to create
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Supporting Students' Knowledge Activation before, during, and after Reading The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-03-29 Courtney Hattan
Knowledge activation and knowledge building are essential for reading comprehension. Yet, how can teachers support students in accessing and applying their existing knowledge and experiences during reading? This article provides six evidence‐based principles to consider during literacy instruction, which are drawn from a recent systematic literature review that examined prior knowledge activation instructional
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Differentiated Reading Groups: Bridging Literacy Instruction and Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-03-27 Lisa M. Domke, Matthew Kaplan, Gary E. Bingham
Culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP) that builds on and sustains students' cultural and linguistic practices is important for students' academic achievement and identities. While CSP is applicable to any content area, a critical time to incorporate it is during differentiated reading groups—small‐group contexts that provide explicit code‐based and/or meaning‐making instruction using varying types of
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Comprehension for Emergent Readers: Revisiting the Reading Rope The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-03-26 Anna Elizabeth Kambach, Heidi Anne Mesmer
This article discusses language comprehension and developing skills with emergent readers, in particular verbal reasoning and language structures, that are necessary for later reading comprehension.
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Reevaluating and Restructuring Comprehension Strategy Instruction The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-03-25 Peter Dewitz, Michael F. Graves
In the face of arguments that knowledge is the key to reading comprehension, we examined the evidence for comprehension strategies instruction. Since the National Reading Panel Report, a number of researchers have reaffirmed the value of including comprehension strategy instruction in the elementary and middle school curriculum. The latest reviews and meta‐analyses indicate that teaching comprehension
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Book Creation to Support English Language Learning The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-03-25 Carolina Torrejon Capurro, Lindsey Moses, Paula Garces
As part of a large study aiming to understand how kindergarten children in Colombia used translanguaging during independent play, Paula (the teacher) along with Dr. Moses (lead researcher) co‐designed a 6‐week play‐based intervention that included a variety of learning experiences such as partner reading, small‐group reading, and supported play, among others. In this guide, we describe the step‐by‐step
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Digital Close Reading for Lower Primary Students The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-03-20 Stephanie Wing Yan Lo‐Philip
How can primary literacy teachers effectively identify, adapt, and incorporate developmentally appropriate technologies to support their students' reading development? This article reports results from a case study attempting to digitize a classroom literacy practice—close reading—for Year 2 students. It suggests that digital tools can effectively support close reading practices and students' literacy
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Teaching English and the Grammatical Use of the Pronoun: Queer(y)ing the Teaching of Writing The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-03-14 Jordan Pickering, Lisa van Leent
In Australia, and indeed in many countries around the globe, teaching pronouns for reading comprehension and cohesion in writing in English language classrooms is not only a curriculum directive but a social justice imperative. In this paper, we combine the teaching of pronouns in English with social justice concepts of political representation and cultural recognition for gender equity. We engage
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Enhancing Opportunities for Decoding and Knowledge Building through Beginning Texts The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-03-15 Elfrieda H. Hiebert
Ensuring effective texts for student reading acquisition is a shared goal. This paper addresses the efficacy of decodable and leveled texts, their word features, and outcomes of reorganizing texts by vowel patterns and topics. Sparse evidence supports one text type's superiority in building a strong reading foundation. Further, the decoding demands of decodable and leveled texts diminish after initial
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Click, See, Do: Using Digital Scaffolding to Support Persuasive Writing Instruction for Emerging Bilingual Learners The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-03-13 Amy Hutchison, Anya Evmenova, Kelley Regan, Boris Gafurov
This article using a persuasive writing example to showcase how digital technologies can be used to support all students, especially emerging bilingual learners, as they learn genre‐specific norms for writing.
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Enhancing Reading and Writing Skills through Systematically Integrated Instruction The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-03-13 Young‐Suk Grace Kim, Elizabeth Zagata
Reading and writing are often taught separately. This article explores the crucial relations between these skills, emphasizing the importance of understanding the "what" and "why" to effectively plan the "how" of integrated reading–writing instruction. The Interactive Dynamic Literacy Model (Kim, Reading‐writing connections: Towards integrative literacy science. Springer; Journal of Learning Disabilities
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A Response to: Stories Grounded in Decades of Research: What We Truly Know about the Teaching of Reading The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-03-12 Heidi Anne E. Mesmer
This article responds to a word recognition vignette in a recent article “Stories Grounded in Decades of Research: What we Truly Know about the Teaching of Reading.”
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A Fundamentally Wrong Premise and a Disservice to the Profession: Responding to “… What we Truly Know about the Teaching of Reading” The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-03-12 Claude Goldenberg
This article responds to a recent article “Stories Grounded in Decades of Research: What we Truly Know about the Teaching of Reading.”
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A Response to our Critics: Agreements, Clarifications, and Children The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-03-12 Catherine Compton-Lilly, Lucy K. Spence, Paul L. Thomas, Scott L. Decker
Compton-Lilly and colleagues respond to recent critiques of their viewpoint article, Stories Grounded in Decades of Research: What We Truly Know about the Teaching of Reading—published in The Reading Teacher. We first respond to specific concerns raised by our critics. We then discuss recent legislation being enacted in statehouses across the United States that does not reflect current research. Finally
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LGBTQ‐Inclusive Read‐Alouds in a Second‐Grade Classroom The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-03-11 Aimee Papola‐Ellis, Katie Hollenberg
As more challenges occur to erase LGBTQ identities in the classroom, it is essential for educators to learn ways to become more inclusive. Using children's literature is a powerful way to include and center all identities. In this article, we share the journey and work of 1 s‐grade teacher on a path to become more LGBTQ‐inclusive with read‐alouds.
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The CPB Sight Words: A New Research‐Based High‐Frequency Wordlist for Early Reading Instruction The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-03-07 Clarence Green, Kathleen Keogh, Julia Prout
This paper focuses on one of the most widely used resources by reading teachers duringearly‐emergent literacy, the high‐frequency wordlists commonly called ‘sight words. Existing sight word resources available to teachers are extremely outdated and/or methodologically unsound. In this Teaching and Learning in Action article, a new research‐based listof high‐frequency words is released for teachers
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Liberatory Literacy Practices for Black Students Through a Lens of Care The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-03-06 Mona Beth Zignego
This article explores how Black teachers have used liberatory literacy practices through a lens of care when working with Black students. The prioritization of care is particularly important for Black students as they often experience a lack of care within schools due to labeling, stereotyping, and a lack of racially and culturally diverse teaching staff, curriculum, and resources. Black teachers are
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Repositioning Differentiation Time as Literacy Acceleration Time The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-03-05 Sharon Walpole
In this invited Viewpoint, Sharon Walpole tracks her thinking about feasible, effective, small‐group differentiated instruction. She acknowledges political pressures and the focus on science of reading. She describes the attractiveness and feasibility of guided reading. She then identifies some salient criticisms of the assessments, texts, and instructional model used in guided reading. Finally, she
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Following the Rules in an Unruly Writing System: The Cognitive Science of Learning to Read English The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-03-05 Devin M. Kearns, Matthew J. Cooper Borkenhagen
The core task of reading is to look at letters and identify their sounds and meaning. In English, the spelling system is quasiregular, meaning it includes many reliable patterns (some so reliable they could be called "rules") but also many inconsistent ones (the sound of EA in heat vs. head). The triangle model of reading (Seidenberg & McClelland, 1989) demonstrates that novice readers gradually learn
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Schools and Families of Early Learners Collaborating to Support At Home Read Alouds The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-03-02 Charlene Cobb, Camille L. Z. Blachowicz
Question asked in a preschool/primary teacher PD session on read‐alouds: “After our Family Night presentation on home read‐alouds, we got so many questions from families and caretakers. How can we give follow‐up support?” This teaching guide suggests three simple ideas for supporting parent home‐read‐alouds with preschool, kindergarten, and first‐grade students.
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Writing and Reading Connections: A before, during, and after Experience for Critical Thinkers The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-03-01 Paul Deane, Zoi A. Traga Philippakos
This article underscores the intimate connection between reading and writing as communication skills that share a common linguistic and orthographic foundation, and which combine in complex ways to support practical literacy tasks. Developing higher order literacy skills requires teachers to develop metacognitive skills and self-regulation, both of which are fostered by writing-for-reading and reading-for-writing
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Widening Teachers' Reading Repertoires: Moving beyond a Popular Childhood Canon The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-02-16 Teresa Cremin, Sarah Jane Mukherjee, Juli-Anna Aerila, Merja Kauppinen, Mari Siipola, Johanna Lähteelä
To develop a love of reading in the young, teachers need rich repertoires of children's literature and other texts. However, the significance of this subject knowledge is rarely given the attention it deserves in policy, practice, or training contexts. This article, drawing on survey data from England and Finland, underlines these concerns. It reveals that in line with the surveys of practicing teachers
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Incorporating Decodable Books into an Early Grades Literacy Curriculum: Tensions and New Learnings from One Teacher The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Kerry Elson, Ashley Pennell, Rebecca Payne Jordan, Kindel Turner Nash, Woodrow Trathen
In this article, one teacher shares her journey using decodable books with her culturally and linguistically diverse students, documenting new understandings and tensions that she has encountered. Four literacy teacher educators augment the teacher's story by connecting it with the current literature on literacy and decodable books. After reading this article, readers will walk away with a stronger
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Three Strategies for Supporting Elementary Writers through the Practice of Sharing The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Bethany P. Lewis
Although orally sharing and discussing written compositions has been shown to benefit elementary students, it can be challenging to entwine this additional pedagogy with an already full literacy instructional period. This article acknowledges these challenges and outlines three evidence-based instructional modifications to encourage active sharing in literacy classrooms to support developing writers
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Making Artificial Intelligence Your Friend, Not Your Foe, in the Literacy Classroom The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-02-14 Amy Hutchison
The recent development of ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence application that mimics human language, has many educators questioning its place in the classroom. This article provides suggestions for instructional uses of ChatGPT in the literacy classroom so that teachers can empower students to use this tool safely and effectively for learning.
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History and Education of the Sacred: Black Girls and Curricular Violence in Literacy Learning The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-02-13 Jennifer N. Brooks, Gholdy E. Muhammad
Black girls and their literacies are genius. Yet, education, as we know it, does not consistently offer spaces for Black girls to be loved and honored. This form of neglect extends to literacy classrooms. As displayed in the news and research, Black girls experience abuse within the confines of educational walls. Educational violence against Black girls is a byproduct of dehumanization and devaluation
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A Healthy Diet for Beginning Readers: Decodable Texts as Part of a Comprehensive Literacy Program The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-02-13 Ashley E. Pennell, Rebecca Lee Payne Jordan, Kindel Turner Nash, Kerry Elson, Woodrow Trathen
We suggest that a healthy literacy diet for beginning readers consists of literacy experiences along a number of dimensions, including experiences with decodable text. As such, this article explores the role of decodable texts in a comprehensive early literacy curriculum that recognizes literacy as a complex, culturally mediated, and multifaceted set of skills. We provide five guidelines for practitioners
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Humanizing History: Using Historical Fiction Texts to Develop Disciplinary and Racial Literacies The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-02-11 Leslie La Croix, Colleen K. Vesely, Bweikia F. Steen
Historical fiction is a powerful genre for inviting children into meaningful conversations centered on the lived experiences of others. Historical inquiry immerses readers in interdisciplinary research experiences and complements language arts Common Core State Standards that call for a balance of fiction and non-fiction text. Antiracist lenses enhance inquiry conversations and help students articulate
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Tools that Talk: Scaffolding Dialogic Instruction Through Close Reading of Informational Text The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-02-07 Troy V. Mariage, Elizabeth A. Hicks, Sarah Reiley, Arfang Dabo
This article describes a comprehensive framework (iDISC) for the close reading of informational texts for elementary students that may need additional language, social, memory, or behavioral supports. The article introduces concrete tools that are used before, during, and after close reading, including cue-cards, language stems, discussion behaviors, anchor posters, and graphic organizers. The tools
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Students as Partners: Using an Equity-Oriented Critical Assessment Practices (CAPS) Approach in Reading to Empower Students and Inform Instruction The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-02-07 Elena E. Forzani, Christina Dobbs, Christine Leider, Emily Malik, Melanie Gragg, Clara Greszczuk, Courtney Jesberger
This article offers a framework for more equitable classroom reading assessment known as a Critical Assessment Practices (CAPS) approach. CAPS includes a set of four principles that teachers can use to partner with, and to empower, students to support more equitable and informative classroom-based reading assessment. Teachers can apply the CAPS approach to examine and adjust existing classroom reading
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Beyond Representation: Using Nonfiction Children's Literature to Address Ableism The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-02-05 Kara G. Hollins, Sarah L. Schlessinger
Educators who take an inclusive, anti-ableist stance value human variation. Teaching in pursuit of anti-ableism requires open dialogue about aspects of human diversity, complex social identities, and the contributions of people with disabilities. In this column, we build from the rich work exploring ableism via children's literature in order to push beyond representation and into the critical work
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Learning about America's Racial Issues: Beginning Difficult Conversations through Read-Alouds The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-02-03 Jacquelyn M. Urbani, Candace Monroe-Speed, Bhavya Doshi
Multiple racial issues in America have been brought to the forefront by the recent deaths of African Americans, yet many teachers feel unprepared to engage with students around issues of race. Their discomfort is likely because traditional textbooks omitted the experiences of non-dominant, marginalized groups, thereby denying readers an opportunity for a rich, multifaceted understanding of historical
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“Why Do You Think That?” Exploring Disciplinary Literacy in Elementary Science, History and Visual Arts The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-01-31 Patrick Burke, Eithne Kennedy
Teaching disciplinary literacy in the elementary classroom provides rich potential for bridging the literacy-content divide, building background knowledge, extending learning, and deepening student thinking. This article explores how six elementary teachers tried and tested approaches to embedding literacy in three very different subjects: science, history, and visual arts. Drawing on data from a design-based
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Scaffolding Expository Reading with Picture Books: Strategies for Comprehending Informational Language The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-01-31 Brittany Adams, Gillian E. Mertens, Zhihui Fang, Marissa Baugh
Informational texts present complex content using language that is simultaneously technical, abstract, dense, and authoritative. This article describes practical strategies to support teachers in using informational picture books to prepare upper elementary school students for navigating the complex language demands necessitated by expository reading. These strategies include morphological analysis
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New and Not-Well-Known Research about Reading Disabilities: Teachers Want to Know The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-01-23 Adrea Truckenmiller
Laws, practices, and research about reading difficulties have been gradually and rapidly changing since the passage of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in 1974. It is difficult for schools to keep up, especially when it takes approximately 16 years for research to reach widespread public knowledge. In this article, I frame the latest research about reading difficulties within the daily
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Uses and Misuses of Commercial Reading Assessment: An Applied Framework for Decision Making in Grades K through 6 The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-01-18 Adrea J. Truckenmiller, Eunsoo Cho, Samantha Bourgeois, Ellie Friedman
The purpose of this article was to offer guidance to educators in evaluating the strengths, weaknesses, and most effective uses of commercial reading assessment suites. We provide three resources to help educators who are responsible for making instructional decisions in reading using formal screening, benchmark, interim, and progress-monitoring assessment suites. First, we recommend a framework for
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“I Had a Deep-Down Stereotype”: Pairing Critical Literacy Practices to Examine Explicit and Implicit Gender Stereotypes with Elementary Students The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-01-10 Alyssa Whitford
Connecting literacy to social issues such as gender stereotypes supports reading and writing achievement while also allowing students to think critically and in justice-focused ways. Such practices allow students to critique gender stereotypes in texts while also examining and even challenging their own implicit perceptions of gender. However, teachers are often not provided support in challenging
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“That's a Third Rail Issue” Using LGBTQ+ Children's Literature as Backup to Counter Pushback The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-01-10 Jon M. Wargo, Kierstin Giunco, Kyle Smith
Offering insights from a research–practice partnership, we examine how five pre-K–6 teachers discussed using LGBTQ+-inclusive children's literature as backup to counter curricular censorship and community pushback.
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Promoting Early Writing Across the School Day The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2024-01-07 Hope K. Gerde, Taylor Seymour, Gary E. Bingham, Margaret F. Quinn
This article provides early educators with guidance for promoting early writing development by integrating writing opportunities throughout the school day.
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From Teacher to Literacy Coach: Negotiating Roles and Learning on the Job The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2023-12-26 Leah Ruesink, Laura Teichert
This paper responds to Ippolito et al.'s (2021) “wonder,” “What preparation and in-service support do coaches need to become systems thinkers, thought leaders, and change agents within their schools” (p. 182) by describing the obstacles and complexities experienced by two first-year literacy coaches as they transitioned from classroom teacher to coach. They described challenges related to adult learning
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Teaching in the Cracks: Using the Three Lenses Framework to Promote Comprehension and Critical Engagement with Global Texts The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2023-12-21 Jeanne Gilliam Fain
Many teachers tirelessly grapple with topics of text selection, evaluation, and comprehension—examining elements of diversity, quality, and kid appeal to empower teachers to select titles for classrooms through a critical lens—under a mandated scripted curriculum. The purpose of this column is to explore and draw upon teachers' knowledge around implementation of global texts with a focus on comprehension
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Make It Make Sense: Fostering Children of Color from Minoritized Communities’ Comprehension Through Student-Generated Decodable Readers The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2023-12-20 Amber Lawson
When young children of Color from minoritized communities read decodable readers mandated by their school districts, children approach reading the texts with the expectation that the texts will make sense. While decodable readers allow children to apply their knowledge of phonics skills in context to support their word recognition, they tend to lack meaning and are not written in typical oral speech
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iSTART-Early and Now I Can Read: Effective Reading Strategies for Young Readers The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2023-12-20 Micah Watanabe, Tracy Arner, Danielle McNamara
Students in the 3rd and 4th grade often encounter what has been called a reading “slump” when their class curriculums increasingly ask them to comprehend and learn from texts. Students are more likely to struggle if they have not been offered sufficient opportunities to build world and domain knowledge and engage in challenging comprehension tasks while developing their reading skills. Thus, it is
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Biliteracy in Bilingual Programs: Understanding how Children Read Dual-Language Books The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2023-12-18 Lisa M. Domke
Because dual-language books (DLBs) print the entire text in two languages nearby on the page, they have great potential for supporting children's biliteracy development by providing contexts to compare/contrast languages. However, little is known about how children read DLBs independently and how they may/may not use such characteristics to support learning. This article reports on a study of the think-alouds/verbal
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Using Strive-for-Five Conversations to Strengthen Language Comprehension in Preschool through Grade One The Reading Teacher (IF 1.783) Pub Date : 2023-12-13 Sonia Q. Cabell, Tricia A. Zucker
Engaging in frequent, meaningful conversation during the early years of schooling is foundational for children's literacy development. Specifically, developing oral language through daily conversations is essential for language comprehension, and eventually, reading comprehension. In this article, we discuss how teachers can use the Strive-for-Five framework to strategically engage students (preschool