The Reading Teacher articles from May 2003

The Reading Teacher archives from May 2003

Final words. (Editorial).(Editorial)
May 1, 2003... We are concluding our four-year term as editors of The Reading Teacher with this issue. Beginning with the September 2003 issue, the new editors will be D. Ray Reutzel from Utah State University (Logan, Utah, USA) and Judith Mitchell from...

What do I say when they get stuck on a word? Aligning teachers' prompts with students' development: just as teachers align text type and word study with development, they can align the type of assistance they offer when students encounter unfamiliar words.
May 1, 2003... Even casual observation reveals that primary-grade classrooms in the United States are populated by students with diverse levels of reading ability. This diversity raises serious challenges for teachers as they plan instruction. To...

A "Report in a Can". (Teaching Ideas).
May 1, 2003... In the spring of the year you can find Susan Gerken's second-grade students engaged in gathering data for the first research report of their school experience. As a university professor who spends numerous hours in elementary classrooms...

Web reading: linking text and technology. (Teaching Ideas).
May 1, 2003... "Are we doing computers today?" Daniel's enthusiasm caught me off guard (all names are pseudonyms). He never commented on the time I spent as a reading specialist in his classroom. In fact it was hard to get him interested in any kind of...

Finding the accented syllable: start at the suffix. (Teaching Ideas).
May 1, 2003... When poor readers confront longer words, sometimes "true recognition of the word eludes them because they have not correctly accented one of the syllables" (Hook & Jones, 2002, p. 10). These students may pronounce each syllable more or less...

Improving comprehension through mural lessons. (Teaching Ideas).
May 1, 2003... When children begin school with little knowledge of people, places, things, or books, we sometimes confuse their lack of information with a lack of ability and lower our expectations for literacy learning. Low-income students are especially...

Integrating research and story writing. (Teaching Ideas).
May 1, 2003... A storytelling unit offers a unique opportunity for students to develop skills in telling and writing stories while enhancing their Internet research skills. While some stories are created from personal experiences, others can be developed by...

Jazzy possibilities in urban education. (Teaching Ideas).
May 1, 2003... Wynton Marsalis, jazz trumpeter and ambassador for jazz, has often declared that "Jazz is the only true American art form." Further, Marsalis has stated that "Jazz is both modem and ancient, jazz is harmony through conflict, like a good, hot...

Buddies aren't just for reading, they're for spelling too! (Teaching Ideas).
May 1, 2003... When young children engage in "real" writing--composing their own simple sentences or short stories--they immediately face a dilemma. How can they write words that they do not know how to spell? During my 25 years as an elementary school...

Text maps: helping students navigate informational texts. (Teaching Ideas).
May 1, 2003... A text map is an instructional approach designed to help students gain fluency in reading content area materials. Text maps are based on the recurring organizational features of content area materials used in upper elementary instruction....

A picture is worth a thousand words: using visual images to improve comprehension for middle school struggling readers: this article discusses teacher and student drawings in the classroom, illustrations in texts, picture books, and movies as external image-based tools that support reading comprehension.
May 1, 2003... We are surrounded by visual imagery through television, movies, videos, computers, and illustrated texts. The use of these sources of images is obvious as one walks through a school. Classrooms in the United States often have computers,...

Earthrise.(Poem)
May 1, 2003... Earthrise Proud of his poem in which he has neatly printed the word sunset several times around the setting sun he had drawn, a first grader shares his poem with a classmate. The picture takes up the whole page. ...

Other countries' literacies: what U.S. educators can learn from Mexican schools: researchers examined language and literacy practices in first- and fourth-grade classrooms in two schools in a small town in central Mexico.
May 1, 2003... Until fairly recently, instruction and research on literacy development in U.S. schools paid little attention to the language and literacy practices ethnic- and linguistic-minority students bring to the classroom. Where mentioned, these...

Teacher study groups: a strategic approach to promoting students' literacy development. (Trends in Teacher Certification and Literacy).
May 1, 2003... Changing classroom demographics and increasing demands for a more highly educated population have given rise to increased calls for education reform across the United States. In order to make meaningful, dynamic differences in the quality of...

Those words.(Poem)
May 1, 2003... Those words Those words-- those wonderful words: Perching on lips Slithering into space Oozing into hearts Puncturing the air with their presence... Presents! For what is poetry For...

Reading mathematics: more than words can say: an understanding of mathematical literacy draws on many of the same skills as print literacy.
May 1, 2003... My colleagues often discuss in faculty meetings the various components of teaching children to read with fluency, proficiency, and comprehension. When I visit these colleagues' offices, I notice that their shelves are lined with books about...

Exemplary literacy teaching. (The Professional Library).(Book Review)
May 1, 2003... Surely one way that teachers and teacher educators can improve instruction for children is to share descriptions of exemplary teaching. This is a simple idea, based on classroom teachers' well-deserved reputation for common sense,...

Collaboration, initiation, and rejection: the social construction of stories in a kindergarten class: the social complexity of learning is revealed during read-aloud and journal writing time in a classroom where students are encouraged to interact with peers as they learn.
May 1, 2003... Mrs. Milner (all names are pseudonyms) and her kindergarten class are reading Clifford the Big Red Dog (Bridwell, 1985) during read-aloud time. In this particular classroom, the students engage in a wide variety of literacy practices. As the...

"The teacher makes it more explainable" and other reasons to read aloud in the intermediate grades. (The Intermediate Grades).
May 1, 2003... When Karen Broaddus and I surveyed over 1,700 sixth graders about their best reading experiences in school, an overwhelming 62% of students indicated a preference for teacher read-alouds (Ivey & Broaddus, 2001). This number was not surprising...

Poet's checklist.(Poem)
May 1, 2003... Poet's checklist Always start with ideas that sing in your heart. Choose sharp, juicy, whistling words. Rhyme is fine, but it must shine. Over and over and over--write, read, revise. See, touch, taste, smell, listen...

Less is more: preparing students for state writing assessments: the demands of U.S. state writing assessments are daunting for students. However, teachers can support their students' success by using guiding principles of best writing practice combined with the U.S. English language arts standards.
May 1, 2003... "Less is more" we keep telling ourselves. Students learn more when we teach less--but teach it well. (Dempster, 1993, as cited in Schmoker & Marzano, 1999) In this time of educational change, teachers are being asked to teach more...

I remember those long winter nights when father told stories.
May 1, 2003... My father used to be a great storyteller. It was his storytelling that led me to the world of literacy. I can't help but miss those long winter nights many, many years ago when Father told us stories. Father was probably the only person...

A content analysis of second-language research in The Reading Teacher and Language Arts, 1990-2001: this study examines the second-language (L2) content published in two journals from 1990 to 2001 and finds an increase in the amount of such material.
May 1, 2003... Teachers of second-language learners are eager to learn ways to adapt their rapidly changing classrooms to accommodate linguistic diversity (Baumann, Hoffmann, Duffy-Hester, & Ro, 2000). In many school communities second-language populations...

Celebrating literature! (Children's Books).(Critical Essay)
May 1, 2003... "`And now,' cried Max, `Let the wild rumpus start!'" from Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (1963, 1988) Each time we read a book aloud, discuss it with other readers, or respond to it making our own connections, the "wild...

Sixth-grade reader.(personal narrative)
May 1, 2003... My sixth-grade year was not easy, to say the least. Is it easy for anyone? It is a year of new, raging hormones, of being taller than the boys in your class, of either begging for a training bra or bursting out of one overnight. It is a year...