Reading is more than looking at the words on a page. Critical reading involves re-reading text to "dentify patterns of elements -- information, values, assumptions, and language usage-- throughout the discussion. These elements are tied together in an interpretation, an assertion of an underlying meaning of the text as a whole."

Carnegie report follow-up to Writing Next. This report provides evidence answering the following three questions: 1. Does writing about material students read enhance their reading comprehension? 2. Does teaching writing strengthen students' reading skills? 3. Does increasing how much students write improve how well they read?

Perfect timing on this, Erin! One of our members is going to model T4 for us on Monday! You did a nice job describing it, providing a great cue-set for the demonstration!

Another fascinating article. I appreciate how you share your thinking about your own literacy experiences, and what you hope to bring to students.

I'm still rather "tactile" in my learning style too! Will you please bring me a copy of the article? Or, if you have it as a pdf, you can email it to me.

A thorough analysis of a fascinating article! I think when the authors were referring to "minutiae of students' rituals" it was more to help the reader understand the students wrote in their reading journals in great detail. The authors' purpose was to learn more about the total reading habits of the college students, after all.

Nice job breaking it all down!

"Part of the reason my students have such a hard time reading is because they bring little prior knowledge and background to the written page. They can decode the words, but the words remain meaningless without a foundation of knowledge. To help build my students' prior knowledge, I assign them an "Article of the Week" every Monday morning. By the end of the school year I want them to have read 35 to 40 articles about what is going on in the world. It is not enough to simply teach my students to recognize theme in a given novel; if my students are to become literate, they must broaden their reading experiences into real-world text." Includes links to articles used as well as articles used in previous years.

A plethora of before, during, and after reading, hands-on activities.

A nicely done, comprehensive (therefore helpful) review. I'd love to see the book if you wouldn't mind bringing it to class.

So often I hear that "Daily 5" is lower el. So glad to hear you have used it with success in 4th grade, Renee!

Thanks for sharing your personal memories, Erin. I have deeply fond memories of my mom reading to us as kids, and doing different voiced. If you ask me in class, I'll share my favorite!

You mentioned the article has "neat tips." Any that you might incorporate?

I appreciate how you demonstrated that this article made you think about your own classroom, and changes you want to make.

Nice job picking out the highlights of--what was the article about again-- lol Seriously, some great points that apply to more than just reading.

The idea of students not being able to hear/produce sounds not in their first language was a real a-ha for me.

Suggested activities for engaging students in historical narrative.

Our topic next week is read-alouds and shared reading. This page has some activities dealing more with oral language, but the skills of summarizing, determining importance, sequencing and more are also in play.

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Maria, please include the citation and/or a link to the article in your comment. It looks like you put it in the space for tags. Easy to do; there's always a learning curve in something new.

The article is available through ERIC: http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED423718.pdf

The literature review for this study did cite some very interesting information on the differences between boys' and girls' brains. The whole area of brain research is fascinating. You make a very good observation in noting that teachers must use a variety of methods/styles to reach all learners.