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Research from dual and bilingual education programs shows that the use of a student's home language for reading instruction is one of the most beneficial practices for multilingual learners. Given the plethora of home languages encountered in public schools, how can teachers who do not speak the languages of their students utilize a student's home language as an asset during reading instruction? This article describes a case study of a second grade Japanese student. During instruction, the student read texts in both Japanese and English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to recently published national standards, elementary students should engage in engineering design activities. This article outlines ways that teachers can use literacy instruction to support young students' engineering design activity, such as by selecting texts in which characters face problems that can be solved through engineering, providing students with opportunities to practice comprehension strategies while reading those texts, and modeling for them how to write a variety of texts that are relevant to engineers' practices. The authors describe how they integrated this type of literacy instruction into engineering units in third- and fifth-grade classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inferential comprehension requires both emotional intelligence and cognitive skills, however instructional comprehension strategies typically underemphasize the emotional contribution. This article documents an intervention used by diverse third grade students which centers on teaching story comprehension through character perspective-taking (i.e., Theory of Mind). The intervention guides readers to identify the feelings and thoughts of two characters engaged in a conflict, and then analyze how their internal state drive their actions. As an alternative to a traditional story map, the authors created the graphic organizer, CHAMP: Chart for Multiple Perspectives. Additional topics include selecting authentic children's literature to support perspective-taking, employing the use of text evidence, and strategies for teaching emotional vocabulary. Implications for academic and social-emotional learning (e.g., empathy), cross-curricular extensions, and alignment to curricular standards are noted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Literature supports children's literacy growth in many ways. It helps children extend their understanding and clarify different situations in their lives, recognize and deal with feelings, and be more empathetic. Hands-on activities based on stories support children in giving shape to their thoughts. These creative activities not only empower the children but also help teachers understand children's interpretations of literature better and build further on themes for discussions of literature. This article describes an instructional approach with a series of activities (stories, drawing, crafts and discussions) integrated with picturebooks. The activating methods can be used in classrooms to revitalize literature discussions while engaging different senses of all learners. This article gives teachers ready-made materials for use in early childhood education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article documents the experiences of a diverse group of second grade students during a nine week unit of study focused on graphic stories. The project begins as the class is immersed in reading graphic stories designed for young readers. Images, written text, and dialog are utilized to scaffold reading comprehension and to practice fluency. Then, students construct their own graphic stories based on characters from books, popular culture, and personal experiences. Each story is transformed into a digital format with narration using Photo Story. The results indicate student growth in the areas of comprehension and fluency. There is also a need to integrate new literacies with traditional to prepare students for communicating in the 21st century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Successful implementation of the Common Core State Standards (2010) will require an alignment between learning standards, effective instruction, and the new assessments designed by the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Career ( PARCC) and Smarter Balanced ( SB) consortia. Both the CCSS and the new generation of assessments call for students to comprehend and respond to complex texts using text evidence and high levels of thinking. Traditional test preparation that focused on isolated skills is not likely to be effective in preparing students for success on the PARCC or SB tests. Instead, fruitful practices are likely to be (a) teaching integrated content units, (b) teaching comprehension strategies, (c) providing opportunities for high levels of speaking, listening and thinking about texts, (d) using official writing rubrics, and (e) providing diagnostic interventions for at-risk readers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Providing preschoolers with rich writing experiences can help to lay a foundation for their later reading and writing success. Early writing experiences can be greatly enhanced by how preschool teachers answer young children's questions about writing and engage them in productive writing instruction. With appropriate scaffolding, early writing provides support for children's overall literacy development. Taking an individualized approach to writing instruction allows teachers to capitalize on children's literacy skills at each level of development. This article provides a framework for teachers to evaluate and understand the writing that young children produce and research-based guidance on how to shape instruction in response to each child's strengths. Scenarios are presented to illustrate the varied child-centered responses teachers can use to support and develop foundational literacy skills through writing across typical preschool classroom contexts (i.e., centers, journals, morning message). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Standard 10 of the Common Core State Standards attends to students' capacity with complex text. This standard distinguishes the Common Core State Standards from previous standards documents. This article describes a process-the Text Complexity Multi-Index (TCMI)-that supports teachers in studying texts to support their students in increasing capacity with complex text. The TCMI addresses the three prongs of the text complexity triad identified by the CCSS: quantitative, qualitative, and reader-task. As teachers apply steps of the TCMI process, they become increasingly knowledgeable about the features of texts that can create challenges for students and those that provide the content of lessons that support students in reading increasingly more complex texts across their school careers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses approaches to differentiating instruction to meet the needs of students whose literacy needs, interests, and strengths vary widely. This article was designed to support classroom teachers who understand the importance of differentiating instruction, but are unsure of how best to design and implement differentiation within the parameters of the classroom. The article begins by defining differentiated instruction and discussing its importance, including the role of differentiation with respect to diversity and with respect to Response to Intervention (RTI). The remainder of the article describes in detail two examples of differentiated instruction in classroom contexts. Each example is followed by a discussion of the research and decision-making underlying the teacher's approach to differentiation. The article concludes with common characteristics of effective differentiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]