Reading Instruction

Learning to read can be hard. For children with dyslexia, it can be especially hard. In a 2017 interview with American Public Media reporter Emily Hanford, neuroscientist Guinevere Eden argued that “reading is not a natural skill,” as our brains were designed to recognize objects—such as an animal loping toward us...

Improving literacy rates among adolescent students is a growing area of focus in education, and rightfully so. Statistics from the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress test (NAEP) given in 2017 revealed that just 36 percent of fourth-graders who took the reading test scored “at or above” the proficient...

For many literacy educators, student engagement is measured by what we see, not what we hear. After all, students are primarily learning reading and writing skills, so if they are busy processing and analyzing the text, the classroom should be quiet—right? Not at all. In fact, encouraging student discussion can...

Ms. Hoye and a small group of second-grade students sit around a kidney-shaped table. The students whisper-read from individual copies of the same book—about life in the ocean—moving along at their own pace. “Ms. Hoye–” Isaiah looks up. “What does this say?” He points to the word school. After several prompts...

Educators are always on the lookout for quick ways to check student comprehension. After all, no teacher wants to get to the end of a unit only to find out that students have been struggling all along. Periodic, low-stakes, informal assessments allow educators to see whether students need more review...

If you’ve worked with students who are beginning to read and write, you’ve likely found yourself explaining the difference between b, d, and p. Why are these letters so often confused? Not only do b, d, and p have similar names and shapes, they also sound alike. Making the distinction...

It is widely acknowledged today that too many adolescents lack sufficient literacy skills. The United States Department of Education has even declared a “crisis” in adolescent literacy, stating that “the literacy skills of many students in grades 4–12 are so alarmingly low that the students have difficulty meeting the academic...

Your students are still learning to read, so when should they begin reading to learn? Right now! In fact, reading informational text builds background knowledge, supports the development of academic language, and can capitalize on students' natural curiosity about the world around them. Informational text often develops a topic by...

Oral language is often associated with vocabulary as the main component. However, in the broadest definition, oral language consists of phonology, grammar, morphology, vocabulary, discourse, and pragmatics. The acquisition of these skills often begins at a young age, before students begin focusing on print-based concepts such as sound-symbol correspondence and...

Middle and high school students who struggle with reading need a very different type of support than educators might offer to their younger, early-elementary counterparts. While struggling readers in kindergarten through third grade are still learning new skills and being exposed to new information, adolescent students have likely been receiving...