Elaine K. McEwan

Articles by this author

Comprehension

Create Reading Accountability

Engaged, accountable reading requires students to interpret, and respond, often creatively. This article suggests several personalized ways to hold students accountable for their reading.
high school student reading text passage at home

Fluency

Develop Fluency Using Content-Based Texts

Fluency is the missing piece of the reading puzzle for many older students. They can decode, but they cannot do it automatically and accurately enough to comprehend text. Here are some fluency-building activities to complement content delivery.

Content-Area Literacy

Provide Models, Examples and Nonexamples

Similar to expert craftsmen teaching their trades to apprentices, teachers can model thinking and problem-solving skills to their students. Read more about various classroom modeling techniques.

two middle school students reading a class text together

Vocabulary

Root Words, Roots and Affixes

Familiarity with Greek and Latin roots, as well as prefixes and suffixes, can help students understand the meaning of new words. This article includes many of the most common examples.

Comprehension

Teach the Seven Strategies of Highly Effective Readers

To improve students’ reading comprehension, teachers should introduce the seven cognitive strategies of effective readers: activating, inferring, monitoring-clarifying, questioning, searching-selecting, summarizing, and visualizing-organizing.

Vocabulary

Use and Teach Content Vocabulary Daily

Copying definitions from the dictionary and memorizing words for tests is not sufficient work for students to master and retain new vocabulary.

About Teaching Reading

Use the Cooperative Learning Model

Cooperative learning fosters group accountability and provides struggling readers with the opportunity to work with stronger academic role models. Learn how to introduce this strategy in the classroom.