This article presents the findings of a two-year qualitative study of electronic reading device use with high school sophomores, most of whom self-identified as reluctant or struggling readers. Electronic readers were used primarily in one weekly fifty-minute class period, during silent sustained reading, wherein students chose freely their texts.…

This commentary offers a critique of literacy pedagogy that focuses solely upon a best practices approach to teaching and learning and argues for a relational pedagogy that relies upon diffractive thinking, reading, and writing.

Successful Internet reading requires making strategic decisions about what texts to read and a sequence for reading them, all in accordance with readers' goals. In this paper, we describe the process of realizing and constructing potential texts as an important and critical part of successful Internet reading and use verbal report data to…

This article explores the digital reading preferences and strategies used by preservice teachers when reading an e-textbook in a literacy methods course. The use of e-textbooks is becoming more prevalent due to an increase in access to mobile devices, acceptance of e-books in general, and the high cost of print textbooks. To ensure comprehension,…

The research presented in this article examines the English language and print literacy development of adolescent refugee students with limited and interrupted formal education (SLIFE) aged 14 to 21. The aim of this research was to determine if and how teaching early reading strategies to secondary ESL/ELD teachers could improve students'…

Thousands and thousands of middle school students around the world participate in reading intervention programs, many that are very expensive with limited effectiveness. We wanted to know if an after-school intervention focused on close reading procedures could improve student achievement. Close reading of complex text involves annotations,…

Linked text sets (LTS) offer a promising approach to bring together adolescent students and complex texts, such as those required by the Common Core State Standards, using strategic scaffolding. LTS include a variety of print and media texts that address a guiding question that is meaningful to students such as, "Why is growing up so…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) require literacy instruction for secondary students across content areas, but they also recommend that this instruction account for the discipline-specific nature of academic texts. Since English language arts (ELA) teachers and literacy specialists are also responsible for teaching students to read across…

Implementation of Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts across most of the United States has yielded the rapid creation of new, interconnected literacy assessments, curriculum guidelines, instructional materials, teacher preparation programs, teacher evaluation systems, and professional development. This essay explores two…

Mathematics textbooks play a critical role in shaping instruction and the ways students and teachers use strategies. Math textbooks are written using language patterns that differ from the narrative patterns many elementary students typically read (Fang & Schleppegrell, 2010; Moje et al., 2012). Mathematical texts rely on a large amount of…

Many literacy teachers are creating contexts for students to learn and use a range of reading comprehension strategies. As useful as reading strategy instruction is, relatively little has been documented on the ways in which reading strategies can become tools for critical literacy. In this paper, the author illustrates how a reading strategy can…

In this commentary, the authors bring insights from their work on science-literacy integration at the elementary level to bear on the ongoing conversation about disciplinary literacy at the middle and secondary levels. In particular, the authors discuss what they have learned about inquiry, disciplinary reading strategies, and the role of text in…

This article offers recommendations for literacy and mathematics leaders as they design and implement effective professional development and support for middle and secondary mathematics teachers to integrate literacy into their instruction. To cross the mathematics-literacy divide, the authors provide an annotated bibliography of articles…

In an October 2008 "JAAL" Commentary, Moje took issue with the teaching of generic reading strategies in the middle and high school content areas. She argued for teachers to provide "disciplinary literacy" instruction, focusing on the specific kinds of reading and writing that go on in content areas. The present article concurs with that argument…

As the knowledge that students have to learn becomes more specialized and complex in secondary schools, the language that constructs such knowledge also becomes more technical, dense, abstract, and complex, patterning in ways that enable content experts to engage in specialized social and semiotic practices. In order to effectively engage with the…