Articles from A-Z

Why Phonological Awareness Is Important for Reading and Spelling

By: Louisa Moats and Carol Tolman (2008)

Phonological awareness is critical for learning to read any alphabetic writing system. And research shows that difficulty with phoneme awareness and other phonological skills is a predictor of poor reading and spelling development.

What Should Be Emphasized at Each Stage of Reading Development?

By: Louisa Moats and Carol Tolman (2008)

Familiarity with the five essential components (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension) in core, comprehensive reading programs is necessary for all teachers of reading. Although all components are needed at all levels, different skills and activities are emphasized at different stages of reading development.

Six Syllable Types

By: Louisa Moats and Carol Tolman (2008)

Learn the six types of syllables found in English orthography, why it's important to teach syllables, and the sequence in which students learn about both spoken and written syllables.

Historical Layers of English

By: Louisa Moats and Carol Tolman (2008)

English is a layer-cake language. Not only is it organized to represent sounds, syllables, and morphemes, but its spellings are derived from several languages that were amalgamated over hundreds of years due to political and social changes in Great Britain.

English Gets a Bad Rap!

By: Louisa Moats and Carol Tolman (2008)

English orthography, or the English spelling system, may not be as transparent or easy to spell as Spanish, Italian, or Serbo-Croatian, but it's not crazy! Most English word spellings can be explained and most English words do follow spelling patterns.

Reading to Two: A Double Challenge

By: PBS Parents (2008)

While parents understand the importance of reading to children, it is often a struggle to read to two. How can parents negotiate the "book wars," when one child only wants to read chapter books and the other insists on reading picture books? What can parents do when one child wants to read about dinosaurs and the other wants to read about ballerinas?

Teaching Metalinguistic Awareness and Reading Comprehension with Riddles

By: Marcy Zipke (2008)

Riddles are the perfect medium for learning how to manipulate language for many reasons, including students' familiarity with them and motivation for reading them. Here's how riddles can be used in the classroom to stimulate student's metalinguistic awareness.

Selecting Books for Your Child: Finding 'Just Right' Books

By: Kathleen Rogers (2008)

How can parents help their children find books that are not "too hard" and not "too easy" but instead are "just right"? Here's some advice.

Handwriting

By: Reading Rockets (2008)

Adventures in Reading: Family Literacy Bags

By: Reading Rockets (2008)

Parent Involvement Checklist

By: Project Appleseed (2008)

One way to start improving your school's parent-school partnerships is by assessing present practices. This checklist can help you evaluate how well your school is reaching out to parents.

Dyslexia

By: Voice of America (2008)

This article describes the basic facts about dyslexia, a learning disability that most commonly affects reading, spelling, and writing.

Learning Disabilities: An Overview

By: LD OnLine (2008)

Healthy Hearing

By: Reading Rockets (2008)

What Is This Thing Called RTI?

By: American Federation of Teachers (2008)

Response to Intervention (RTI) is a complex subject and states and districts have a lot of discretion with the implementation of this three-step, research-based approach to intervention and placement. Learn about some of the common misconceptions of the RTI process and read about additional RTI web sources.

Is Dyslexia Hereditary?

By: Jerome J. Schultz (2008)

The director of Learning Lab at Lesley University, explains that dyslexia is regarded as a neurobiological condition that is genetic in origin, which means it can run in families.

Guiding Independence: Developing a Research Tool to Support Student Decision Making in Selecting Online Information Sources

By: Rindi Baildon and Mark Baildon (2008)

This study of fourth grade students indicates that the use of a "research resource guide" increases student independence during the research process. The article describes approaches to support students in making determinations about the readability, trustworthiness, and usefulness of sources of information.

For Students Who Are Not Yet Fluent, Silent Reading Is Not the Best Use of Classroom Time

By: Jan Hasbrouck (2008)

Teachers do their best to improve students’ fluency, but sometimes the information they have to work with is incomplete and, therefore, leads them down the wrong path. For example, silent reading or 'Round Robin' reading seem like good ways to improve fluency. But, in fact, increasing fluency requires more practice, more support, and more guided oral reading than either of these strategies can deliver.

Developing Fluent Readers

By: Jan Hasbrouck (2008)

What should fluency instruction look like? And, what can teachers do to help students whose fluency is far behind their peers'? This article should help practitioners use of fluency-based assessments and select instructional practices.

Reading Software: Finding the Right Program

By: National Center for Technology Innovation (2008)

With the range and variety of commercial software products on the shelves today, how can an educator or parent choose a program that will most benefit a particular student? Where are product reviews that can inform the decision?