Timothy Shanahan

Meta-analyses indicate that it is effective to teach kids about multiple text structures, and that text structure instruction is particularly potent when writing, graphic organizers, and guidance on watching for “clue words” are included

I want kids to be close readers … I think teachers should strive to accomplish the standards their states have established. But take a gimlet-eyed look at what it is that you are teaching. Is it really close reading?

Strategy use only makes sense when success isn’t certain. Teaching students to use strategies with relatively easy texts neither lets them see how to use the strategy nor reveals to them the power that it can provide.

Instruction in how to make sense of sentences can play an important role in reading comprehension. For example, when students struggle with sentences written in the passive voice, teach with some texts that use this construction.

Schools should provide students with up to 30 minutes a day of fluency instruction. But remember, this is across all classes and content areas.

A new study indicates that it is not beneficial for most students (English learners are one exception), to shift to easier texts to facilitate their reading — as long as you are ready to provide instructional support.

I suspect that our kids would read better if they knew more, so expanding kids’ knowledge of the world very well might promote higher literacy.

[I recommend] balancing the needs for sustained attention and stamina and the possibility of exposing kids to some really great novels against exposing kids to a broader and more varied experience with elements of literature, literary works, and racial

Having classes/groups of students read common texts with teacher scaffolding is a good idea, whether we are talking about the reading of a short story in an English class or a chapter from a science book.

Oral sharing and video and audio presentations have their place in the high school English curriculum. But it is a small place, so teachers need to be honest with themselves as to why they are using those approaches.

In grades 3-8, homework has a fairly consistent impact on achievement — and the payoff tends to increase as students advance through the grades (but so does the amount of homework time needed — more on that later).

While I encourage, and even require, oral reading instruction in middle schools, I don’t countenance round robin. Engage your kids in paired reading and they’ll get much more oral reading practice than in the round robin approach.

First, make sure the kids know what you are up to, that they have English dictionaries, and that they recognize what the challenge is. Rereading and background knowledge are particularly important scaffolds. 

Instead of front-loading the first reading, you could try front-loading the second or third — after the kids have had a chance to “pedal the bike themselves” — even if that pedaling isn’t perfectly successful.

Only part of guided reading is under challenge by Common Core. Small group instruction should afford teachers opportunities to observe student problems with reading and interpretation, and this insight should be used to shape instruction. 

When kids get the opportunity to discuss something with a partner before responding to a teacher question, positive outcomes have been seen in the primary grades in reading and in the upper grades with second-language learners.

A middle school reading coach asks if it is important for African American children to read African American literature. Alfred Tatum, author of Engaging African American Males in Reading, shares his thoughts.

Monitoring comprehension means not tabulating specific skills that have been accomplished, but what complexity of text language students can negotiate.

Vocabulary learning is incremental and there are more words that kids need to learn than we can teach. Kids need lots of opportunities to confront words in their reading and listening.

Disciplinary literacy refers to the specialized or somewhat unique texts or text features in those texts that are the province of a particular field of study and the specialized approaches to reading and writing texts used by experts in a field of stud

Above the 30-35th%ile cutoff, I would definitely just give these kids extra time with the demanding grade-level materials. Below that line, and I would want to provide at least some explicit instruction in foundational skills.

For those of you upset about literature being dropped from the English curriculum, you might want to read this lovely piece written by my friend, Carol Jago.

Students seem to do better when they get a steady diet of more challenging text, but there is also the widespread belief that there is an optimum difficulty level for texts used to teach students to read.

This idea of using challenging (not impossible texts) is important. Students do need texts that they can read, but they also need to stretch. Towards that end, I suggest the following.

We want students to understand stories as more than a bunch of structural blocks. Stories are really about conflict, and story maps don’t get at this idea very well.