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Poetry can help develop in students a love for reading, writing, and playing with language, yet it is often a neglected literary form in many reading curricula. Those who see the value of poetry recognize it as the perfect genre for teaching phonics, fluency, and a love of language. The rhyming, rhythmical language of poetry provides the perfect backdrop for teaching word families (rimes/phonograms). Poetry also helps young readers develop fluency through the use of beautiful, melodic language that begs to be read repeatedly, which helps develop prosody and a lifelong love for literacy. The thoughtful selection of words also provides the right context for vocabulary development and critical thinking. However, for teachers who love poetry, the most important reason to use this text type may simply be that it works! [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Common Core State Standards suggest that an appropriate goal for secondary education is college and career readiness. Previous research has identified reading fluency as a critical component for proficient reading. One component of fluency is word recognition accuracy and automaticity. The present study attempted to determine the word recognition accuracy and automaticity indicators for incoming college students and to examine the relationship between oral reading rate and ACT scores. Knowledge of such performance may provide secondary literacy educators with another tool for assessing reading proficiency and college readiness. Eighty-one students were asked to read a college-level narrative passage. Mean student accuracy and automacity scores were determined, as well as correlations between accuracy, automacity, and students' ACT scores. Results suggest a moderate and significant relationship between measures of automaticity and both the ACT reading subtest and ACT composite scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors reflect on becoming an effective teacher of reading. A brief review of major investigations that specify what goes on in classrooms of teachers who promote student learning and growth is presented. The authors state that the most pervasive conclusion of school and teacher effectiveness studies was that reading teachers profoundly influence how much students learn. They assert that students learn more if teachers hold high but reasonable academic expectations for them.