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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.

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.