A good way to help struggling readers is to help them learn the most common rime patterns. The rime is the part of the word after the first vowel. For example, in the word “mice” the /m/ sound is called the onset and the “ice” is called the rime. In English, we often change the [...]

Get students interested in monitoring their own reactions to text by asking them to rate each chapter of a book they are reading on an “interest level” chart.  After reading each chapter, students color in the bar to indicate how interested they were in the text of that chapter. Students can then discuss their reactions [...]

As more and more students have ready access to the internet, doing “old fashioned research” in the library with encyclopedias and reference books has become a thing of the past. In the July/August 2008 issue of Atlantic Monthly, author, Nicholas Carr alleges in his article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” that internet search engines have [...]

Research indicates that there are two instructional strategies that, when done well, can boost students’ reading abilities: Sustained silent reading and direct vocabulary instruction. Yet, says Robert Marzano, no schools or districts in the United States have created programs that combine the two. The strategies, observes Marzano, are silver bullets “just sitting out there.”

Helping students visualize what they are reading helps deepen comprehension and also helps students retain information longer. Ask students to read a specific section of text collaboratively. When they have completed the text, ask them to discuss the material and to then create a picture, diagram or mind map to show what they have learned [...]