[Free Registration/Login Required] An informational text about companies marketing junk food to children. A question sheet is available to help students build skills in reading comprehension.

[Free Registration/Login Required] Students read an advertisement and some background information and answer questions about comprehension, persuasive techniques, vocabulary, author's purpose, and more. Links to a paired text and paired...

Use explicit strategy instruction to make visible the invisible comprehension strategies that good readers use to understand text. Support students until they can use the strategies independently. Recycle and re-teach strategies...

This article describes eight cognitive strategies - including monitoring, tapping prior knowledge, and making predictions - to help readers develop their comprehension skills.

Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) is a technique that teaches students to work cooperatively on a reading assignment to promote better comprehension. CSR learning logs are used to help students keep track of learning during the...

Listen-Read-Discuss (LRD) (Manzo & Casale, 1985) is a comprehension strategy that builds students' prior knowledge before they read a text. During the first stage, students listen as you present the content of their reading through a...

The read aloud, read along, and read appropriately strategies involve three phases of reading instruction. As the teacher thinks aloud about what he or she is reading, students begin to understand the connections between the words on the...

Dysfluent readers are so consumed with word identification that they cannot focus on extracting or constructing meaning from the text. Here are some activities to develop students' fluency skills, so that they may move on to access content.

In its practice guide Improving Adolescent Literacy: Effective Classroom and Intervention Practices, the Dept. of Education offers five recommendations for increasing the reading ability of adolescents. Those recommendations are...

[Free Registration/Login Required] An informational text about the addictive nature of tobacco and the dangers teens face due to tobacco marketing strategies. A question sheet is available to help students build skills in reading...

Comprehension strategies are routines and procedures that readers use to help them make sense of texts. Struggling adolescent readers need direct, explicit instruction in comprehension strategies to improve their reading comprehension.

An overview of findings from the second year of the Enhanced Reading Opportunities (ERO) study, an evaluation of two supplemental literacy programs - Reading Apprenticeship Academic Literacy and Xtreme Reading - that aim to improve the...

Students need to develop an extensive vocabulary to read with fluency. In turn, fluency in reading leads to increased comprehension. Fluency also comes from the written language of the reader since the student writes words he or she...

Think Alouds help students learn to monitor their thinking as they read an assigned passage. Students are directed by a series of questions which they think about and answer aloud while reading. This process reveals how much they...

Teachers can help students build confidence in their ability to comprehend content-area texts, by providing a supportive environment and offering information on how reading strategies can be modified to fit various tasks. Teachers should...

While much has been learned about literacy in the elementary grades, less is known about programmatic approaches that help struggling adolescent readers acquire the skills they need to succeed in high school. The Enhanced Reading...

This true-or-false exercise tests listening and reading comprehension. Students read a variety of help wanted ads. They then listen to a variety of statements about the ads, deciding if the statements are true or false.

The developmental nature of reading means that diagnosing the reading comprehension ability of adolescents is more challenging than diagnosing reading comprehension among third graders. In particular, assessments should not only capture...

Text comprehension allows readers to extract or construct meaning from the written word. Students who misread words or misinterpret their meanings are at a disadvantage. Proper instruction can boost students' skills in this key area.

[Free Registration/Login Required] This nonfiction passage provides information about the ancient Aztec Empire, including the significance of Montezuma and Tenochtitlan. This passage reinforces essential reading comprehension skills....

Students often think they understand a body of material and, believing that they know it, stop trying to learn more. But come test time, it turns out they really don't know the material very well at all. Can cognitive science tell us...

This article summarizes a study that evaluated the effectiveness of intensive instruction in the Word Identification Strategy, a learning strategy for decoding multi-syllabic words. Results indicate that intense strategy instruction...

The Monitoring/Clarifying strategy teaches students to recognize when they don't understand parts of a text and to take necessary steps to restore meaning. This technique is a component of the Reciprocal Teaching model in which teachers...

Reading Guides help students navigate reading material, especially difficult textbook chapters or technical reading. Students respond to a teacher-created written guide of prompts as they read an assigned text. Reading Guides help...