Research has indicated that a large percentage of primary-grade students who struggle in reading have not achieved full competency in the foundational reading competencies (word recognition and fluency). In this article, the author argues that more intensive instruction of the foundational competencies is needed and proposes a simple lesson…

Offers strategies to use when students are not able to achieve a high level of accuracy in story reading. (FL)

Discusses the use of analogy strategies, which involve comparing word parts to other known words, to teach reading. Reports on a study that showed positive effects from teaching analogy strategies to second-grade students and to learning disabled fifth-grade students. (FL)

Discusses five ways to determine the amount and quality of prior knowledge children bring to a topic: (1) free recall tasks, (2) word association tasks, (3) structured questions, (4) recognition tasks, and (5) unstructured discussion. (FL)

Examines some problems and techniques for teaching prefixes and suffixes at the middle elementary level. States that fewer affixes should be taught, while emphasizing the application of affix knowledge to unfamiliar words. Lists the most common prefixes and suffixes in printed school English for grades three to nine. (MM)

Describes how the author worked with one struggling reader to help him learn to make balanced and consistent use of different cues for word identification (graphophonic cues, how words look, grammatical appropriateness of words, sentence meaning, or background knowledge). (SR)

Describes a strategy to teach early readers to look for smaller words that they know within a large word they do not know. (SR)

Presents an instructional framework for use with beginning readers that focuses on strategy development and the use of authentic, purposeful materials. Provides a teaching "guide" to help teachers understand the important metacognitive features of the program, but notes that it is up to teachers to plan, teach, and evaluate their students'…

Reports on a study in which a seven-year-old girl was trained to focus on individual words in learning to read. (FL)

Finds the most effective schools and teachers to be distinguished from moderately and less effective schools by the following: time spent in small-group reading instruction, with much teacher collaboration; coaching children in strategies to figure out unknown words as part of phonics instruction; higher-level comprehension questions; more…

Homework is an instructional staple for most classroom teachers; however, considerable debate over the effectiveness of homework has been at the center of discussions among researchers, administrators, educators, parents, and students. Rather than continuing the battle as to whether or not homework enriches learning, it appears the more…

Claims that even though teaching phonics is an effective method of reading instruction, the skills taught by phonics have little to do with the process of reading acquisition. Offers two methods of resolving the paradoxes generated by this situation. (NH)

Argues that teaching students to use pictures in their minds improves their thinking skills. Offers a four step procedure for helping students formulate their own techniques for creating mind pictures. (FL)

Outlines diverse strategies (contextual clues, palindromes, figurative language/idioms, etc.) for increasing vocabulary skills of gifted readers in the lower primary grades, using children's literature to supplement good tradebooks. (NKA)

Discusses four critical areas of instruction (decoding skills, language development/competence, concept/context building, and critical thinking skills/strategies) which can help limited English proficient (LEP) students improve their reading competence. (MM)