Describes how many students expect reading to be about answering literal-level questions, taking true-false tests, and figuring out what a teacher wants to know. Explains the Six Traits of Reading from Northwest Regional Educational Labs: decoding; building context; comprehending; interpreting; synthesizing; and evaluating. Notes that these sorts…

Contends that talking about texts in a conversational environment, during and after reading, allows students to think about a text and think about their thinking. Explains "conversation sparks," which push students to make a variety of type of comments that include predictions, questions, clarifications, and inferences. Concludes that giving…

Describes an informal investigation of students' familiarity with and knowledge of active reading strategies by administering the Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory. Contends that student responses solidified the importance of helping students become aware of reading strategies. Concludes that the best way to encourage content…

Explains the process of focusing on one critical reading strategy--questioning. Notes that the teacher first modeled questioning while reading a book aloud. Concludes that as students become full participants in questioning, they understand new vocabulary, enjoy reading, and solve their problems. (PM)

Contends that the value of writing as a powerful tool for teaching reading is often underestimated. Explains that when students write and revise their writing, they are reading to make sure what they have written is clearly understood by themselves and their audience. Notes that for many students, reading what someone else thinks stimulates their…

Contends that comprehension requires not just seeing the text, but seeing through the text to something that lies beyond it. Notes that comprehension is not something achieved but rather is a goal to keep working towards. Concludes that comprehending is a process of creating, often by means of multiple texts and exchanges with other readers. (PM)

Explains how to help students understand the relationship between figuring out words and the ability to comprehend a text. Describes how to solidify the word-learning/comprehension connection via explaining, modeling, and supporting transfer to independence. Concludes that explaining, modeling, and supporting transfer to independence form the…

Explains that plot and structure, character, setting, point of view, style and language, symbol, and theme are the building blocks of fiction. Contends that these elements of literature provide readers with the tools they need for navigating difficult texts. Concludes that when teachers determine that a novel's setting is too foreign or the point…

Explains a shift in reading instruction theories, from defining reading as a set of discrete skills to understanding the role prior knowledge plays in comprehension. Presents annotations of 11 web sites that give teachers ideas about how to help students construct meaning and how to transact with text in powerful ways. Notes that these strategies…

Finding voice is often the most intimidating stumbling block to authentic writing in the classroom. Linda Rief offers insight into tapping students' passion and promoting personal responsibility for learning with her "quickwrites," and includes a checklist of ways to elicit writing that matters.

Teachers must also be writers. This notion, at the very heart of the National Writing Project, led Judith Jester to recognize the power of process, feedback, audience, modeling, and thinking. Being a writer and sharing the successful strategies she learned as a NWP fellow has helped her students grow as both thinkers and writers.

Suggests that instead of thinking about literacy as an entity, thinking about literacy as social practice can be revolutionary. Argues that rather than think in terms of phonics, spelling, and grammar, it is helpful to think about what kinds of literacy one needs in order to read things critically. Discusses multiple literacies, literacy as a…

Suggests three main characteristics middle school students can look for when deciding whether a Web site has reliable information. Encourages students to "Think APE": Author, Purpose, and Expiration date. Presents an annotated list of eight Web sites to help build Web literacy. (SG)

Discusses the influence of book club experiences on teachers. Argues that teachers simply must have a ready awareness of their own reading-as-thinking processes in order to effectively share and demonstrate them to kids. Suggests the implementation of teacher book clubs. (SG)

Examines ideas about the literate and the illiterate, the tutored and the untutored in the poem "Answer," by Mary Oliver. Suggests that if educators want students to read carefully and analyze conscientiously, then the works they study have to matter to them. Discusses universal literacies, literacy in school and out, classroom discourse and real…