A good way to help students think about what they read and increase their comprehension of the text is to use a method called Questions into Paragraphs. Developed by McLaughlin (1987) the QuIP procedure helps students think about text both before they read as well as after reading. Students develop or are given 3 related [...]

Kids love using technology so why not capitalize on technology to build student reading skills especially for English Language Learners and struggling readers?  The Lit2Go website (see link below) has some great books that you can download to your classroom computers or  iPods. Students can listen to the stories while reading the text or simply [...]

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 [...]

I recently came upon this incredible video The Family Dinner Video from a website called Dine Without Whine – The Perfect Gift. The video is beautifully done and I hope you will enjoy the thoughts the author provides about how important it is to spend time with one another as a family. While my blog [...]

We know that good readers are able to picture characters, scenes and events that happen in the books they read. You can help children build their guided imagery skills by asking children to clarify their vision of what was happening in a book. After reading the story without showing children the pictures, ask children to [...]