During her first two years of teaching, a kindergarten teacher (first author) developed a writing program grounded in five instructional strategies that repeatedly appear in emergent writing research--modeling, Scaffolded Writing, invented spelling, word walls, and reader response--and in the overarching principle of Gradual Release of…

Although the worlds of professors and author-illustrators of children's and young adult literature are closely related, they rarely intersect in practice. In this column, readers are provided with a new perspective that crosses this divide. The authors are both professors of children's and young adult literature, as well as accomplished authors…

As teachers and leaders move forward in implementing the Common Core State Standards within classrooms across 46 states, it is essential to consider the question of what knowledge is included in the English Language Arts Standards, and what knowledge is not present. The authors of the Common Core delineate an increasingly complex body of knowledge…

This article presents an engaging means for turning disfluent readers into prosody superstars. Each week students align with Poetry Power Man and his superhero friends to battle the evil Robot Reader and his sidekicks. The Fluency Foursome helps students adhere to the multidimensional aspects of fluency where expression and comprehension are…

People who have impacted generations have left legacies we can explore today through biographies. The 5L instructional design introduced in this article includes five components: Listen, Learn, Locate, Link, and Legacy. In the "Listen" section, teachers use storytelling and read-alouds to introduce individuals who shaped history. During…

A recent survey on implementation of Response to Instruction/Intervention (RTI) found 94% of participating schools implementing some level of RTI ("Global Scholar," 2011). Therefore, it is logical to assume that most educators have heard about the concepts at the heart of RTI, even though specific iterations and names of the frameworks…

This article tells the story of one second grade teacher and the ways she integrated informational texts into her classroom. Reported by the classroom teacher and a researcher who studied her practice for a year, the manuscripts detail the ways Michelle (the classroom teacher) embedded informational texts in her classroom primarily within the…

As teachers, we have both the power and the responsibility to create classrooms full of eager, curious, and active readers and learners. Teaching students to become strategic readers and thinkers and to actively use the knowledge they glean from reading are the focus of the comprehension practices discussed in this article. A longstanding research…

How can we best contribute to our students' reading development and achievement? What are the hallmarks of successful, independent student readers? An examination of reading curricula, reading assessment, and related Federal education policy reveals the ongoing emphasis on the cognitive strategies and skills of reading. The teaching and…

Standard 10 of the Common Core State Standards attends to students' capacity with complex text. This standard distinguishes the Common Core State Standards from previous standards documents. This article describes a process--the Text Complexity Multi-Index (TCMI)--that supports teachers in studying texts to support their students in…

This article shares an oral reading practice that develops children's fluency skills, with a particular emphasis on performance reading and prosody. The authors share their experiences with Fluency Idol! as a way to engage young children by tapping into pop culture. The practice emphasizes repeated readings, feedback, practice, and…

Authentication projects, particularly for historical fiction, provide a means for students to explore literature and history while practicing critical literacy skills. The authors 1) present benefits and cautions for historical fiction use in elementary classrooms, 2) introduce authentication projects as a means to mitigate risks and enhance…

Joseph Schwab, a curriculum theorist, described four commonplaces, or universals, of teaching: content, students, milieu and teachers. This article considers how the Reading Standards of the ELA-CCSS are shaping these commonplaces in the teaching of reading. The organization of the Reading Standards, for example, focuses on two broad grade bands,…

The purpose of this manuscript was to describe information about an animal-assisted therapy, specifically the Reading Education Assistance Dog (R.E.A.D.) program. In this manuscript I provide information about R.E.A.D. programs in general. Next, I share perspectives solicited from R.E.A.D. participants, specifically teachers, parents, students and…

Consistent with a social-interactive view of literacy development, this report describes a method, Talk, Write, and Read (TWR), that unites the three important and related language processes in its title. In one-on-one, adult-and-child interactions, TWR involves children in talk about a picture book, spelling of target words in the book, and…