Every Child, Every Day Richard L. Allington and Rachael E. Gabriel The six elements of effective reading instruction don't require much time or money—just educators' decision to put them in place. "Every child a reader" has been the goal of instruction, education research, and reform for at least three decades. We now know more than ever about how to accomplish this goal. Yet few students in the United States regularly receive the best reading instruction we know how to give. Instead, despite good intentions, educators often make decisions about instruction that compromise or supplant the kind of experiences all children need to become engaged, successful readers. This is especially true for struggling readers, who are much less likely than their peers to participate in the kinds of high-quality instructional activities that would ensure that they learn to read. Six Elements for Every Child Here, we outline six elements of instruction that every child should experience every day. Each of these elements can be implemented in any district and any school, with any curriculum or set of materials, and without additional funds. All that's necessary is for adults to make the decision to do it.

College and Career Readiness: Same or Different? David T. Conley and Charis McGaughy Whether they're headed for college or a career, students need a solid foundation of academic knowledge combined with crucial thinking and learning skills. The importance of all students being college and career ready is one of the most discussed issues in policy circles and secondary schools these days. But are college readiness and career readiness one and the same? The answer has far-reaching implications for how U.S. secondary schools are organized and how they educate students. But First, A Look Back Through most of the 20th century, college readiness and career readiness were more or less distinct, in part because what we now call career readiness was called job training and took the form of vocational education. In fact, from the 1920s on, large school districts had separate high schools for vocationally oriented students and those going on to college (Tyack, 1974). Even in the high schools themselves, vocational students were mostly separated from college-bound students. This model, with its assumptions about the separation of career and college preparation, remained strongly rooted in high schools throughout the 20th century.

Rote memorization of word lists has never worked. To unleash the power of vocabulary instruction, focus on exploration and engaging word play. When young readers encounter texts that contain too many unfamiliar words, their comprehension suffers. Reading becomes slow, laborious, and frustrating, impeding their learning. That's why vocabulary knowledge is a key element in reading comprehension. To comprehend fully and learn well, all students need regular vocabulary exploration. Unfortunately, the term exploration does not accurately describe most traditional word study in schools. Here are five common misconceptions that often stand in the way of effective vocabulary instruction.

We focused on six strategies designed to strengthen vocabulary development, deepen reading comprehension, and increase students' memory of what they read: (1) direct, explicit instruction in vocabulary; (2) note taking; (3) interactive lecture techniques; (4) compare and contrast methods; (5) formative and summative assessments; and (6) inductive reasoning and inferential skills. Teachers coordinated these literacy strategies with their classroom content. After trying each strategy, we collected data to determine how successful we'd been in giving students tools to help them access complex texts.

The 10 percent summary strategy costs little in teacher time, and it prepares students for the common core state standards in literacy. As schools prepare for the common core state standards in literacy, they'll be confronted with two challenges: first, helping students comprehend complex texts, and, second, training students to write arguments supported by factual evidence. A teacher's response to these challenges might be to lead class discussions about complex reading or assign regular in-class argument essays. Yet the reality is that after discussing a difficult article with a class of 20 or more students, even the most engaging teacher cannot guarantee that every student will understand it. Meanwhile, one would be hard-pressed to find an English teacher who has not inwardly cringed at the thought of having to routinely grade stacks of in-class essays. Some teachers may even neglect to assign such essays, wanting to avoid the work that follows.

Sophisticated reading habits are a necessary foundation for college-level writing, research, class participation, and many other college experiences. Yet in one study of first-generation college student experiences, Byrd and MacDonald (2005) found that "college reading was an area in which participants felt particularly underprepared [especially regarding] vocabulary level and the amount of reading required" (p. 32). Developing strong reader identities and practicing thoughtful, transferable reading skills across the disciplines are important components of any pre-college curriculum, but they are especially crucial for low-income students whose college completion rates are much lower than those of their middle-income peers (Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, 2010; Carey, 2008).