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"Reading Rockets has gathered some of the most important research and reports here in one place....Whenever possible, we've provided a link to a free, online version of the research article, study, or book. In other cases, you'll find a link to a publisher, journal, or online bookstore where you can purchase the resource. You may also want to check with your university or public library, which often have access to online databases and journals where research articles and reports can be found."

A starting point for locating reading research.

I re-read this (highlighted) passage from the article about 3 times to absorb it. When I first became a literacy coach about 10 years ago, our district was just transitioning to the idea of leveled text and guided reading. It was all about giving struggling readers text at their instructional level--easier to access. Now the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) necessitate a shift in that thinking as we need to push students to interact with more complex texts at a higher level of thinking. So I think we can still consider instructional levels (and need to) to help students become proficient readers, but we need to "up the ante" in our book talks to help students go deeper into the meaning.

I know that this isn't *exactly* about reading and learning.  However, this article was so revealing of our culture and mindsets.  I read it with a reading comprehension group I lead at school.  Basically, we (society) spend almost all of our time consuming and, consequently, judging information from all sorts of electronic screens.  We create very little and are so afraid that what we are capable of creating will be judged as "not good enough" because of our judgments of the creations of others.  So, it encourages the reader to go out and create something - write, draw, dance, and learn what makes him or her tick. 

Actually, I think this article has a lot to do with reading and learning. Based on what you read, what would you apply in your teaching practice? (And what did your comprehension group have to say?)

We make a LOT of things in my Spanish classes. Creativity is stretched and encouraged. As far as my comprehension group, they all said, "this is boring... Is it almost over...??" except for one student who loved it and said, "So, we just need to do things that make us happy! It doesn't matter what other people think!" So, I am not sure how much they got out of it...

"The Michigan Adolescent Literacy Council, a special interest council under the Michigan Reading Association, is a professional organization for educators genuinely concerned with improving the teaching of literacy to adolescents. Our goal is to provide awareness of the unique needs of adolescent learners, professional development opportunities, and information on the best practices in the teaching of literacy for adolescents."

The article I read for this journal focused on the differences between readers who are engaged and those who aren't. An engaged reader is a student who wants to read both to gain knowledge and for their own enjoyment. Sometimes it seems as you talk to students that there aren't that many of these. As you could probably assume, students who are engaged in reading are more likely to be successful readers. The reason that I chose this article was first because it was directly applicable to our class. Another was that I would like to be able to get more students to become engaged readers. If it is possible to get some students to want to read on their own it would be a great accomplishment. I think very often students don't like to read because they aren't interested in the readings they are assigned. If, as a teacher, you are able to find subject matter that can interest students they would be much more likely to be engaged readers. The research in this article found some interesting information. One interesting bit was that students' motivation to read decreased as they aged. This seems to make a lot of sense to me. For one thing I believe that very often the reading that students are assigned is very, for a lack of a better word, boring. It could be a good thing to try to provide students with a greater variety of books that may be able to evoke more motivation to read. Another part of this article spoke to the idea that relating the information in readings to real life experiences. This seems to me to be one of the most important things a teacher can do. If teachers are able to relate the information in the readings to real world experiences the students are more likely to grasp the information. Simply having the students read a text and then not providing any real-world context doesn't accomplish a whole lot. For me, the information that has stuck with me the longest is that which was related directly to stories that the instructor told

Engagement and motivation are huge topics in education right now. Small things we can do to tap into students' interests can provide links to help students make connections between school content and their worlds.

This is the website I used for my Journal #2 material. The strategies outlined in my journal are under the Reading Fluency title.

This is a 25 minute video about how helping tutor students helps the community. Please take a few minutes and see what people are doing to help school age children read and write, hopefully you'll be as inspired as I was about spreading this message. 18 March 2008 Accepting his 2008 TED Prize, author Dave Eggers asks the TED community to engage with their local school. With spellbinding eagerness, he talks about how his 826 Valencia tutoring center inspired others around the world to open their own volunteer-driven, wildly creative writing labs.

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Teaching spelling and vocabulary is easy with VocabularySpellingCity! Students can study and learn their word lists using vocabulary and spelling learning activities and games. Students can take final or practice spelling and vocabulary tests right on this engaging site. Premium games and automated student record keeping are available to Premium Members. I really like this because my 3rd grade daughter will write out words and help my first grade son with his spelling words. A great site to help kids spell

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NPR interview with Walter Dean Myers, the current ambassador for Young People's Literature. The theme for his ambassadorship: "Reading is Not Optional."

I love Walter Dean Myers, and think he is great for reaching boy readers. I read Dopesick for my Young Adult literature class last semester, and think he is accessable for various students.

In the last two months, I've had to go to one IEP meeting and one 504 plan meeting for two of my students. In these meetings, we discussed reading strategies to help these students be successful in my class. Even though I teach math, reading the questions for quizzes and tests is challenging for some of my students. I've been looking online for tips on how to write my tests so my students with learning disabilities will do better. I came across this website that gives tips on helping students with disabilities become better readers. Once I find a website or article that talks about accommodating tests for low level readers I will post that as well.

You might want to add tags for "assessment" "intervention" "LD" :) +2

Diversity Lesson Plans and Activities Elementary School Middle School High School Multicultural Education Research Guide For background information on multicultural education of all types and for all levels. This website provides countless lesson links on a wide variety of diversity issues. It has links to the excerpts it recommends you use as well as objectives and essential questions. If you are looking for a lesson for teaching diversity, this is the website for you!

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I found this really cool website from the University of Michigan that provides apps that help students who struggle with reading and writing. Apps like this are great because they are interactive and fun. Some of the apps are free on this website and some of them cost money. I think these apps would be a great way to supplement a lesson. With the majority of students having smart phones now, having your students work on this in class once in a while would be a fun lesson too.

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Bluehost - Top rated web hosting provider - I found this website that has quite a few links to more sites about reading/literacy and there is quite a lot on here is you are interested, however a lot of the site require a membership. I did find a free teacher work site that had some nice things on it that might be helpful. http://us.peeplo.com/search/?q=free%20teachers%20worksheets&type=web&from=adgsp3

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Strategies for Reading Comprehension for social studies, but you could use it for a variety of content areas. A very nice site, and you can actually dowload forms and it gives you instructions on how to use the forms. For me this will be a keeper site.

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As I found this article on reflective journaling, I thought what a great idea for an English middle or high school classroom. The point is to have students sit and reflect about their learning for that day, week, month, and even the entire school year. By thinking back on their learning process students and even adults can begin to understand how their knowledge has grown over a specific period of time. The article quotes the following, "you don't know what you know till you've written it down." What is a reflective journal? A reflective journal - often called a learning journal - is a steadily growing document that you (the learner) write, to record the progress of your learning. You can keep a learning journal for any course that you undertake, or even for your daily work.

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