classroom Strateg
ies
Seed Discussion
Background
A Seed Discussion is a two-part strategy
used to teach students how to engage in
discussions about assigned readings. In
the first part, students read selected
text and identify "seeds" or key
concepts of a passage which may need
additional explanation. In the second
part, students work in small groups to
present their "seeds" to one another.
Each "seed" should be thoroughly
discussed before moving on to the next.
Benefits
Seed Discussions can be developed for a
variety of subjects and reading levels.
This strategy encourages students to
have in-depth discussions of reading
selections. Seed Discussions rely upon
the use of higher order thinking as
students identify and articulate the
"seeds." This technique helps to build
communication skills as thelassroom
Strategies
Seed Discussion
Background
A Seed Discussion is a two-part strategy
used to teach students how to engage in
discussions about assigned readings. In
the first part, students read selected
text and identify "seeds" or key
concepts of a passage which may need
additional explanation. In the second
part, students work in small groups to
present their "seeds" to one another.
Each "seed" should be thoroughly
discussed before moving on to the next.
Benefits
Seed Discussions can be developed for a
variety of subjects and reading levels.
This strategy encourages students to
have in-depth discussions of reading
selections. Seed Discussions rely upon
the use of higher order thinking as
students identify and articulate the
"seeds." This technique helps to build
communication skills as the students
discuss the "seeds" within the group.
Create and use the strategy
Introduce students to the seed
discussion strategy. Each student should
be assigned to a group composed of
varying skill levels and a role within the
group. Seed Discussions usually include
the following four roles played by
students:
Leader: responsible for calling on each
person to share his/her discussion seeds
Manager: ensures that everyone has all
materials for the discussion (books,
journals, seeds, etc.)
Checker: ensures that every group
member has a chance to talk about
his/her seed and that each group
member comments on each seed before
the next person presents a new seed for
discussion
Communicator: the only person to leave
the group; notifies the teacher when
the discussion is complete
Note: Give each student a card
containing a description of their role
(see example below).
Teachers begin by providing each
student with the reading material and a
set of questions about the assigned
reading. These questions will guide
students as they target possible "seeds"
for discussion. Examples of such
questions might include:
What new information does the reading
selection provide?
What did you find interesting or
surprising about the selection?
What did you not understand in the
selection?
The next step is to provide students
with an opportunity to write and refine
their target "seeds."
Students meet in their groups and
assume their assigned roles. Students
begin the discussion by presenting their
"seeds" to one another. Each "seed"
should be discussed by all group
members before moving on to the next.
Teachers should ask students to
determine the strongest and weakest
"seeds." This discussion should include
criteria for deciding upon quality "seed"
ideas. Students can then use those
criteria when developing "seeds" for
their next discussion.
Sample Seed Discussion Cards
The following link contains another
example of a Seed Discussion:
http://nms.pulaski.net/teacher_pages/a
_to_z_literacy_strategies.htm
* To view this file, you'll need a copy of
Acrobat Reader. Most computers
already have it installed. If yours does
not, you can download it now.
References
Just Read Now (n.d.). Seed Discussions.
Retrieved 2008, March 5, from
http://www.justreadnow.com/strategie
s/frayer.htm
Puckett, D. (ed.). (n.d.). A to Z Literacy
Strategies: 70 Best Practice Strategies
for Teaching Reading and Writing Across
Middle Grades Content Areas. Retrieved
2008, March 5, from
http://nms.pulaski.net/teacher_pages/a
_to_z_literacy_strategies.htm
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students discuss the "seeds" within the
group.
Create and use the strategy
Introduce students to the seed
discussion strategy. Each student should
be assigned to a group composed of
varying skill levels and a role within the
.
Sample Seed Discussion Cards
group. Seed Discussions usually include
the following four roles played by
students:
Leader: responsible for calling on each
person to share his/her discussion seeds
Manager: ensures that everyone has all
materials for the discussion (books,
journals, seeds, etc.)
Checker: ensures that every group
member has a chance to talk about
his/her seed and that each group
member comments on each seed before
the next person presents a new seed for
discussion
Communicator: the only person to leave
the group; notifies the teacher when
the discussion is complete
Note: Give each student a card
containing a description of their role
(see example below).
Teachers begin by providing each
student with the reading material and a
set of questions about the assigned
reading. These questions will guide
students as they target possible "seeds"
for discussion. Examples of such
questions might include:
What new information does the reading
selection provide?
What did you find interesting or
surprising about the selection?
What did you not understand in the
selection?
The next step is to provide students
with an opportunity to write and refine
their target "seeds."
Students meet in their groups and
assume their assigned roles. Students
begin the discussion by presenting their
"seeds" to one another. Each "seed"
should be discussed by all group
members before moving on to the next.
Teachers should ask students to
determine the strongest and weakest
"seeds." This discussion should include
criteria for deciding upon quality "seed"
ideas. Students can then use those
criteria when developing "seeds" for
their next discussion

The following link contains another example of a Seed Discussion:

http://nms.pulaski.net/teacher_pages/a_to_z_literacy_strategies.htm
* To view this file, you'll need a copy of Acrobat Reader. Most computers already have it installed. If yours does not, you can download it now.
References
Just Read Now (n.d.). Seed Discussions. Retrieved 2008, March 5, from http://www.justreadnow.com/strategies/frayer.htm
how to Support Immigrant Students and Families: Summary
Colorín Colorado has produced an in-depth guide, How to Support Immigrant Students and Families: Strategies for
Schools and Early Childhood Programs, which presents more than 50 strategies along with tips, resources, videos,
related research, examples from the field, and reflection questions.
The following summary provides an overview of each section of the guide, including a topic overview, key
takeways, and featured strategies.
See Guide
ExtraOrdinary Districts Need Extraordinary School Leaders. How Do We Get Them?
Education Trust's podcast, "ExtraOrdinary Districts," illustrated that:
school leaders who believe in the capacity of all children, no matter what their background, are critical to improving schools; and
school leadership is a potential lever for change at scale.
But that just raises the next issue: How can we ensure that all schools have principals who believe in children and understand how to structure
school around that belief?
To answer that question Education Trust assembled an expert panel of four people who have thought deeply about this.
Michelle Young, Executive Director, University Council of Educational Administration (moderator)
Ann O'Doherty, Director, Danforth Educational Leadership Program, University of Washington
Terrance Green, Assistant Professor, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy, University of Texas-Austin
Steven Tozer, Director, Center for Urban Education Leadership, University of Illinois-Chicago

Adolescent Literacy Glossary

Adequate Yearly Progress, Small Learning Communities, Explicit Instruction — do you know what these
phrases mean? Find these and other commonly used terms related to reading, literacy, and reading
instruction in our glossary.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
Academic English
The English language ability required for academic achievement in context-reduced situations, such as
classroom lectures and textbook reading assignments. This is sometimes referred to as
Cognitive/Academic Language Proficiency (CALP).
Accommodation
Techniques, tools, technology, and materials that allow individuals with LD to complete school or work
tasks with greater ease and effectiveness. Examples include spellcheckers, tape recorders, and extended
time for completing assignments and tests.
Accuracy
The ability to recognize words correctly when reading.
Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP)
An individual state's measure of yearly progress toward achieving state academic standards. Adequate
Yearly Progress is the minimum level of improvement that states, school districts and public schools must
achieve each year according to the No Child Left Behind Act.
Affix
The part of a word that is "fixed to" either the beginning of the word (prefix) or the ending of the word
(suffix). For example, the word disrespectful has two affixes, a prefix (dis-) and a suffix (-ful).
Age Equivalent Score
In a norm-referenced assessment, individual students' scores are reported relative to those of the norming
population. This can be done in a variety of ways, but one way is to report the average age of people who
received the same score as the individual child. Thus, an individual child's score is described as being the
same as students that are younger, the same age, or older than that student (e.g., a nine-year-old student
my receive the same score that an average 13-year-old student does, suggesting that this student is quite
advanced).
Alphabetic Principle
The basic idea that written language is a code in which letters represent the sounds in spoken words.
Analogical Problem Solving
A problem solving approach that involves remembering a similar (or analogous) problem that was solved
previously and applying the solution to the current problem.
Assessment
The process of identifying a student’s knowledge, strengths and needs to assist in determining student
placement, instructional delivery, and need for interventions. There are several types of assessments that
serve different purposes; to learn more see formal assessment, formative assessment, placement
assessment, portfolio assessment, and summative assessment.
Assistive Technology
A device, piece of equipment or system that helps bypass, work around or compensate for an individual's
specific learning disabilities.
Attention-Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
A neurobehavioral disorder that causes an individual to be inattentive or hperactive/impulsive, or to
display a combination of those symptoms.
Auditory Discrimination
The ability to identify the differences between spoken words and sounds that are similar.
Auditory Processing
The ability to understand spoken language.
Authentic Assessment
Authentic assessment presents students with real-world challenges that require them to apply their
relevant skills and knowledge. Authentic assessments are typically criterion-referenced rather than norm-
referenced; such evaluation identifies strengths and weaknesses, but does not compare or rank students.
Students are asked to demonstrate their knowledge, skills, or competencies in whatever way they find
appropriate.
Automaticity
Automaticity is a general term that refers to any skilled and complex skill that can be performed
automatically and with little attention, effort, or conscious awareness. With practice and good instruction,
students become automatic at word recognition and decoding, and are able to focus attention on
constructing meaning from the text.
Background Knowledge
Factual knowledge a student already understands and can build upon when exposed to new content and
concepts.
Base Words
Words from which many other words are formed. For example, many words can be formed from the base
word migrate: migration, migrant, immigration, immigrant, migrating, migratory.
Bilingual Education
An educational program in which two languages are used to provide content matter instruction. Bilingual
education programs vary in their length of time, and in the amount each language is used.
Blend
A consonant sequence before or after a vowel within a syllable, such as cl, br, or st; it is the written
language equivalent of consonant cluster.
Cloze Passage
A cloze passage is a reading comprehension exercise in which words have been omitted in a systematic
fashion. Students fill in the blanks, and their responses are counted correct if they are exact matches for
the missing words. Cloze exercises assess comprehension and background knowledge, and they are also
excellent indicators of whether the reading level and language level of the text are appropriate for a given
student.
Cognates
Words in different languages related to the same root, e.g. education (English) and educación (Spanish).
Comprehension
Understanding the meaning of text by reading actively and with purpose (for learning, understanding, or
enjoyment).
Comprehension Strategies
Techniques to teach reading comprehension, including summarization, prediction, and inferring word
meanings from context.
Comprehension Strategy Instruction
The explicit teaching of techniques that are particularly effective for comprehending text. The steps of
explicit instruction include direct explanation, teacher modeling ("think aloud"), guided practice,
and application.

 Direct Explanation - the teacher explains to students why the strategy helps comprehension and
when to apply the strategy.
 Modeling - the teacher models, or demonstrates, how to apply the strategy, usually by "thinking
aloud" while reading the text that the students are using.
 Guided Practice - the teacher guides and assists students as they learn how and when to apply
the strategy.
 Application - the teacher helps students practice the strategy until they can apply it
independently.

Connected Instruction
A systematic teaching method in which the teacher continually explains to students the relationship
between what they have learned, what they're in the process of learning, and what they will learn in the
future.
Constructing Meaning
A process of making sense of text. By connecting one's own knowledge with the print, readers "build" an
understanding of what the text is about.
Content-Area Literacy
(Also called Discipline-Area Literacy.) The advanced literacy skills required to master academic content
areas, particularly the areas of math, science, English, and history. Content-area literacy is necessary for
success at the secondary level and requires knowledge and understanding of the language, terminology,
structure, and patterns of specific academic subject areas
Context Clues
Sources of information outside of words that readers may use to predict the identities and meanings of
unknown words. Context clues may be drawn from the immediate sentence containing the word, from text
already read, from pictures accompanying the text, or from definitions, restatements, examples, or
descriptions in the text.
Continuous Assessment
An element of responsive instruction in which the teacher regularly monitors student performance to
determine how closely it matches the instructional goal.
Cooperative Learning
A teaching model involving students working together as partners or in small groups on clearly defined
tasks. It has been used successfully to teach comprehension strategies in content-area subjects.
Critical Literacy
An instructional approach that advocates the adoption of critical perspectives toward text. Critical literacy
encourages readers to actively and flexibly analyze texts, and to discuss various interpretations and
meanings.
Curriculum-based Assessment
A type of informal assessment in which the procedures directly assess student performance in learning-
targeted content in order to make decisions about how to better address a student's instructional needs.
Decoding
The ability to translate a word from print to speech, usually by employing knowledge of sound-symbol
correspondences. It is also the act of deciphering a new word by sounding it out.
Developmental Spelling
A recognition that the invented spellings of children follow a developmental pattern. As students learn
about written words, their attempts at spelling reflect an increased awareness of orthographic patterns.
Differentiated Instruction
An approach to teaching that includes planning out and executing various approaches to content, process,
and product. Differentiated instruction is used to meet the needs of student differences in readiness,
interests, and learning needs.
Digital Literacy
The ability to learn and use the computer skills required to function in the workplace and in educational
settings. Many researchers believe it will become increasingly necessary to be digitally literate to succeed
in an Internet-connected economy.
Direct Instruction
A teaching method that features highly scripted lessons and repetitive, interactive activities that teachers
present to groups of students. The method is designed to increase student skills through carefully
sequenced curriculum.
Direct Vocabulary Learning
Explicit instruction in both the meanings of individual words and word-learning strategies. Direct
vocabulary instruction aids reading comprehension.
Discipline-Area Literacy
(Also called Content-Area Literacy) - The advanced literacy skills required to master academic content
areas, particularly the areas of math, science, English, and history. Content-area literacy is necessary for
success at the secondary level and requires knowledge and understanding of the language, terminology,
structure, and patterns of specific academic subject areas.
Double-Entry Journals
Also called two-column notes. With this strategy, a student writes two kinds of notes in two columns or on
facing pages. On the left are the key ideas in the assigned reading selection, with the page on which they
occur, either directly quoted or paraphrased; on the right, the student writes his thoughts about those
ideas. Double-entry journals can be completed on paper or using word processing or other software.
Dysgraphia
Difficulty writing legibly and with age-appropriate speed.
Dyslexia
A language-based learning disability that affects both oral and written language. It may also be referred to
as reading disability, reading difference, or reading disorder. Dyslexia can also cause difficulty with
writing, spelling, listening, speaking, and math.
Dysnomia
Difficulty remembering names or recalling specific words; sometimes called a “word-retrieval” problem.
English as a Second Language (ESL)
English learned in an environment where it is the predominant language of communication.
English Language Learner (ELL)
A student whose first language is not English and who are in the process of learning English.
Explicit Instruction
The intentional design and delivery of information by the teacher to the students. It begins with the
teacher's modeling or demonstration of the skill or strategy; a structured and substantial opportunity for
students to practice and apply newly taught skills and knowledge under the teacher's direction and
guidance; an opportunity for feedback; and an opportunity for independent practice.
Expository Reading
Text that explains, informs, describes, or persuades the reader. Textbooks are an example of expository
reading. Students must understand how expository reading is constructed if they are to extract its
meaning accurately.
Expressive Language
The aspect of spoken langauge that includes speaking and the aspect of written language that includes
composing or writing.
Fluency
The ability to read a text accurately, quickly, and with proper expression and comprehension. Because
fluent readers do not have to concentrate on decoding words, they can focus their attention on what the
text means.
Formal Assessment
The process of gathering information using standardized, published tests or instruments in conjunction
with specific administration and interpretation procedures, and used to make general instructional
decisions.
Free-writes
A writing exercise used for brainstorming and to develop writing fluency. Students write non-stop for five
to ten minutes, expressing their ideas go without concern for revision, editing, or controlling the words.
Frustrational Reading Level
The level at which a readers reads at less than a 90% accuracy.
Grade Equivalent Scores
In a norm-referenced assessment, individual students' scores are reported relative to those of the norming
population. This can be done in a variety of ways, but one way is to report the average grade level of
students who received the same score as the individual child. Thus, an individual child's score is described
as being the same as students in higher, the same, or lower grades than that student For example, a
student in 2nd grade may earn the same score that an average fourth grade student does, suggesting that
this student is quite advanced.
Grapheme
A letter or letter combination that spells a single phoneme. In English, a grapheme may be one, two, three,
or four letters, such as e, ei, igh, or eigh.
Graphic Organizer
A text, diagram or other pictorial device that summarizes, organizes, and illustrates interrelationships
among concepts in a text. Graphic organizers are often known as maps, webs, graphs, charts, frames, or
clusters.
High-Stakes Assessment
High stakes assessments determine important outcomes (such as graduating from high schoo) for an
individual student. High stakes tests differ from tests given by schools to meet the requirements under No
Child Left Behind. Those tests hold states and districts accountable for porr student performane, but do
not require statea to impose personal accountability on students.
Independent Reading Level
The level at which a reader reads with about 95% accuracy.
Independent School District (ISD)
ISD is a common acronym for Independent School District, which refers to the school system the student
attends.
Indirect Vocabulary Learning
Vocabulary learning that occurs when students hear or see words used in many different contexts – for
example, through conversations with adults, being read to, and reading extensively on their own.
Individualized Education Program (IEP)
A written plan which documents the unique educational needs of a child with a disability who requires
special education services to benefit from the general edcuation program; applies to students enrolled in
public schools.
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 2004 (IDEA 2004)
The federal law that provides for special education and related services to eligible students with
disabilities; applies to students enrolled in public schools.
Informal Assessment
The process of collecting information to make specific instructional decisions, using procedures largely
designed by teachers and based on the current instructional situation.
Inquiry Chart
A type of graphic organizer (also called I-chart) that gives students a framework for examining critical
questions by integrating what they already know about a topic with additional information from several
sources. This strategy helps students resolve competing ideas found in separate sources and develop new
questions to explore based on any conflicting or incomplete information they find.
Instructional Reading Level
The level at which a reader reads with about 90% accuracy.
Jigsaw
A cooperative classroom learning strategy in which each member of a group leaves her home-base group
to join another group with an expert in some other aspect of a topic.
Learning Disability (LD)
A neurobiological disorder that affects the way a person of average to above-average intelligence receives,
processes, or expresses information. LD can impact one's ability to learn the basic skills of reading,
writing, or math.
Limited English Proficient (LEP)
The term used by the federal government, most states, and local school districts to identify students who
have insufficient English language skills to succeed in English-only classrooms. Increasingly, English
language learner (ELL) or English learner (EL) are used in place of LEP.
Listening Comprehension
Understanding speech. Listening comprehension, as with reading comprehension, can be described in
"levels" – lower levels of listening comprehension would include understanding only the facts explicitly
stated in a spoken passage that has very simple syntax and uncomplicated vocabulary. Advanced levels of
listening comprehension would include implicit understanding and drawing inferences from spoken
passages that feature more complicated syntax and more advanced vocabulary.
Literacy
Reading, writing, and the creative and analytical acts involved in producing and comprehending texts.
Literacy Coach
A reading coach or a literacy coach is a reading specialist who focuses on providing professional
development for teachers by providing them with the additional support needed to implement various
instructional programs and practices. They provide essential leadership for the school’s entire literacy
program by helping create and supervise a long-term staff development process that supports both the
development and implementation of the literacy program over months and years.

For more information visit the International Reading Association website.

Local Education Agency (LEA)
A public board of education or other public authority within a state that maintains administrative control
of public elementary or secondary schools in a city, county, township, school district or other political
subdivision of a state.
Media Literacy
From the Center for Media Literacy , “Media Literacy is a 21st century approach to education. It provides a
framework to access, analyze, evaluate, and create messages in a variety of forms, from print to video to
the Internet. Media literacy builds an understanding of the role of media in society as well as essential
skills of inquiry and self-expression necessary for citizens of a democracy.”
Metacognition
Metacognition is the process of thinking about thinking. For example, good readers use metacognition
before reading when they clarify their purpose for reading and preview the text.
Morpheme
The smallest meaningful unit of language. A morpheme can be one syllable (book) or more than one
syllable (seventeen). It can be a whole word or a part of a word such as a prefix or suffix. For example, the
word ungrateful contains three morphemes: un, grate, and ful.
Morphology
The study of how the aspects of language structure are related to the ways words are formed from
prefixes, roots, and suffixes (e.g., mis-spell-ing), and how words are related to each other.
Morphophonology
Using a word's letter patterns to help determine, in part, the meaning and pronunciation of a word. For
example, the morpheme vis in words such as visionand visible is from the Latin root word that means to
see; and the ay in stay is pronounced the same in the words gray and play.
Multiple Intelligences
A theory that suggests that the traditional notion of intelligence, based on IQ testing, is far too limited.
Instead, it proposes eight different intelligences to account for a broader range of human potential in
children and adults. These intelligences are: linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic,
musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalist.
No Child Left Behind (NCLB)
The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 is the most recent reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary
Education act of 1965. The act contains President George W. Bush's four basic education reform principles:
stronger accountability for results, increased flexibility and local control, expanded options for parents,
and an emphasis on teaching methods based on scientifically-based research.
Nonverbal Learning Disability
A neurological disorder which originates in the right hemisphere of the brain. Reception of nonverbal or
performance-based information governed by this hemisphere is impaired in varying degrees, causing
problems with visual-spatial, intuitive, organizational, evaluative, and holistic processing functions.
Norm-referenced Assessment
A type of assessment that compares an individual child's score against the scores of other children who
have previously taken the same assessment. With a norm-referenced assessment, the child's raw score can
be converted into a comparative score such as a percentile rank or a stanine.
P-16 and P-20 Councils
State coordinating councils created to align the standards of primary schools (preschool through Grade
12) with postsecondary (college, years 13-16) requirements, and link to workplace success after college
graduation (years 17-20). The goal of these councils is to ensure a seamless educational process for
students as they move from one level to the next, and prepare them for success after graduation.
Peer Mentoring
An arrangement in which an older youth (mentor) provides a younger student with support and/or
tutoring in a one-on-one relationship. The mentor serves as a role model for a younger student who needs
help.
Phoneme
The smallest unit of speech that serves to distinguish one utterance from another in a language.
Phonemic Awareness
The ability to notice, think about, and work with the individual sounds in spoken words. For example,
beginning readers display phonemic awareness by combining or blending the separate sounds of a word
to say the word (/c/ /a/ /t/ – cat).
Phonics
A form of instruction to cultivate the understanding and use of the alphabetic principle; that there is a
predictable relationship between phonemes (the sounds in spoken language) and graphemes, the letters
that represent those sounds in written language, and that this information can be used to read or decode
words.
Phonological Awareness
A range of understandings related to the sounds of words and word parts, including identifying and
manipulating larger parts of spoken language such as words, syllables, and onset and rime. It also
includes phonemic awareness as well as other aspects of spoken language such as rhyming and
syllabication.
Placement Assessment
An assessment used to determine the most appropriate academic placement (grade level, setting, and
special services) for an individual student.
Plateau Effect
This occurs when teaching methods that have formerly helped a student learn and progress are no longer
effective. The child’s upward learning curve “flattens out”(reaches a plateau).
Portfolio Assessment
A systematic collection of a variety of teacher observations and a student's work, collected over time, that
reflect growth of the student’s knowledge, skills, and attitudes in a specific subject area. Portfolios can be
print-based or digital.
Print Awareness
The understanding that written language contains information and is related to oral language. This
connection motivates and directs readers.
Reader's Theatre
A strategy in which students read story scripts aloud during an informal skit or performance. In this active
approach to reading, a student assumes the role of a character and reads his script aloud. A teacher works
with small groups of students to help them read their scripts accurately, fluently, and with proper
inflection. This experience can improve a child’s reading fluency, comprehension and self-confidence.
Reading Across the Curriculum
Teaching reading strategies in all classrooms and subjects, not just in reading and language arts classes.
This helps students access and understand texts that are specific to subjects such as science, math, and
history.
Reading Disability
Another term for dyslexia, sometimes referred to as reading disorder or reading difference.
Receptive Language
The aspect of spoken language that includes listening, and the aspect of written language that includes
reading.
Reciprocal Teaching
Reciprocal teaching is a multiple-strategy instructional approach for teaching comprehension skills to
students. Teachers teach students four strategies: asking questions about the text they are reading;
summarizing parts of the text; clarifying words and sentences they don't understand; and predicting what
might occur next in the text.
Response to Intervention (RTI)
Response to Intervention is a process whereby local education agencies (LEAs) document a child's
response to scientific, research-based intervention using a tiered approach. In contrast to the discrepancy
criterion model, RTI provides early intervention for students experiencing difficulty learning to read. RTI
was authorized for use in December 2004 as part of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
Responsive Instruction
A way of making teaching decisions in which a student's reaction to instruction directly shapes how future
instruction is provided.
Rime
The vowel and all that follows it in a monosyllabic (one-syllable) word. For example, the rime of bag is -ag;
and the rime of swim is -im.
Root Word
Words from other languages that are the origin of many English words. About 60 percent of all English
words have Latin or Greek origins.
Scaffolding
A way of teaching in which the teacher provides support in the form of modeling, prompts, direct
explanations, and targeted questions – offering a teacher-guided approach at first. As students begin to
acquire mastery of targeted objectives, direct supports are reduced and the learning becomes more
student-guided.
Self-advocacy
The development of specific skills and self-awareness that enable children and adults to explain their
specific learning disabilities, as well as their strengths and needs to peers, parents, teachers, and
employers.
Self-monitoring
The mental act of knowing when one does and does not understand what one is reading.
Semantic Maps
Semantic maps are a strategy for graphically representing relationships between and among concepts.
Researchers consider this an excellent technique for increasing vocabulary and improving reading
comprehension.
Service Learning
Structured programs in which students participate in the civic and political life of their community, which
enhances the students’ academic success, social behaviors, leadership skills, and community awareness.
Sight Words
Words that a reader recognizes without having to sound them out. Some sight words are "irregular," or
have letter-sound relationships that are uncommon. Some examples of sight words
are you, are, have and said.
Small Learning Communities
Small learning communities are an increasingly popular approach for teaching adolescents. This approach
uses personalized classroom environments where teachers know each individual student and can tailor
instruction to meet their academic and social/emotional needs. The goal is to increase students' sense of
belonging, participation, and commitment to school.
Special Education (SPED)
Services offered to public school students who possess one or more of the following disabilities: specific
learning disabilities, speech or language impairments, mental retardation, emotional disturbance, multiple
disabilities, hearing impairments, orthopedic impairments, visual impairments, autism, combined deafness
and blindness, traumatic brain injury, and other health impairments. For such children to receive special
education services, it must be determined that they require such services to benefit from the general
education program.
Story Grammar
Story grammars seek to heighten student awareness of the structure of narrative stories. As an
instructional technique, teachers use story grammars to help students identify the basic elements of
narrative text, including setting, theme, plot, and resolution.
Strategic Instruction Model (SIM)
SIM promotes effective teaching and learning of critical content in schools. This model helps teachers
decide what is of greatest importance, what they can teach students to help them learn, and how to teach
them well.

For more information visit the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning website.
Striving Readers Act
Striving Readers is aimed at improving the reading skills of middle school- and high school-aged students
who are reading below grade level. Striving Readers supports the implementation and evaluation of
research-based reading interventions for struggling readers in Title I eligible schools that are at risk of not
meeting — or are not meeting — adequate yearly progress (AYP) requirements under the No Child Left
Behind Act, or that have significant percentages or number of students reading below grade level, or
both.

For more information visit the USDOE website.

Study Strategies
A broad term that refers to strategies students use to improve their comprehension. Study strategies help
students acquire, process, organize, and remember new information.
Summative Assessment
Summative assessment is generally carried out at the end of a course or project. In an educational setting,
summative assessments are typically used to assign students a course grade.
Supplemental Services
Services offered to students from low-income families who are attending schools that have been identified
as in need of improvement for two consecutive years. Parents can choose the appropriate services
(tutoring, academic assistance, etc.) from a list of approved providers, which are paid for by the school
district.
Syllabication
The act of breaking words into syllables.
Syllable
A part of a word that contains a vowel or, in spoken language, a vowel sound (e-vent, news-pa-per).
Technical Vocabulary
Refers to vocabulary specific to a particular topic.
 Text Comprehension
The reason for reading: understanding what is read by reading actively (making sense from text) and with
purpose (for learning, understanding, or enjoyment).
Text Structure
Text structure refers to the semantic and syntactic organizational arrangements used to present written
information. Common formats for text structure include compare/contrast, cause and effect, and
sequencing.
Thematic Teaching
Thematic teaching is interdisciplinary teaching that organizes instruction around, and delivers curriculum
through, the exploration of major topics or themes.
Transcription Skills
Skills involved in the process of writing; examples: handwriting, spelling, punctuation, and capitalization.
Transition
Commonly used to refer to the change from secondary school to postsecondary programs, work, and
independent living typical of young adults. Also used to describe other periods of major change such as
from early childhood to school or from more specialized to mainstreamed settings.
Vocabulary
Word knowledge. Listening vocabulary refers to the words a person recognizes when he hears them in oral
speech. Speaking vocabulary refers to the words he uses when speaking. Reading vocabulary refers to the
words a person knows when he sees them in print. Writing vocabulary refers to the words he uses in
writing.
WebQuests
A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all the information that learners work
with comes from the web. A critical aspect of WebQuest design is finding good resources on the Web.
Word Attack
An aspect of reading instruction that includes intentional strategies for learning to decode, sight read, and
recognize written words.
Word Recognition
The ability to automatically recognize a previously-learned word.
Word Study
Instruction that helps a student focus on the parts of a word. This approach helps him break apart words
and identify parts such as root words, prefixes, and suffixes to discover the meaning of the word.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

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 About

Why We're Teaching Reading

Comprehension In A Way That Doesn't
Work

Natalie Wexler

Senior Contributor

EducationI write about retooling K-12 education to address social inequality.


There’s been a lot of concern about phonics instruction in recent months, sparked by an
illuminating new audio documentary. But there’s another aspect of reading—comprehension—
that is equally crucial, and teacher training in that area is even more problematic.

As the documentary details, many teachers—and professors of education—are unfamiliar with

the overwhelming evidence that systematic phonics is the most effective way to teach children
how to decode written language. While there's been some pushback, quite a few teachers who
have listened to the documentary or an accompanying piece on NPR—or read the New York
Times op-ed by the documentary’s producer, Emily Hanford—have expressed dismaythat they
were never given this information as part of their training.

But there’s been little discussion of the even more widespread problems with training in
comprehension instruction. True, compared to phonics, teacher-education programs are more
likely to say they cover reading comprehension. But what prospective teachers learnabout
comprehension in those courses is dangerously inaccurate.

GETTY

One reason is the influential 2001 report of the National Reading Panel. The report endorsed five
“pillars” of reading instruction, including phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, and
vocabulary. The fifth pillar was instruction in strategies designed to boost comprehension, such
as learning to summarize or make a graphic representation of a text. While many
educators challenged the report’s findings on phonics, they embraced its endorsement of
comprehension strategies. In 2006, only 15% of teacher-training programs taught
comprehension. Ten years later that figure had risento 75%. In contrast, only 62% said they
covered phonics, and only 37%appear to cover all five "pillars."

What the report failed to mention was the strong evidence showing that the most important factor
in comprehension isn’t mastering strategies: it’s how much knowledge a reader has of the topic.
In one widely replicated experiment, students who scored poorly on a reading test but knew a lot
about baseball outperformed “good readers” who knew little about baseball—when the reading
passage was about baseball. In fact, the comprehension strategies endorsed by the panel all rely
on activating prior knowledge—which means they only work if a reader has enough background
knowledge to understand the text in the first place. But that’s one of many things prospective
teachers never learn.

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In a typical comprehension lesson, a teacher focuses on a supposed skill or strategy, like making
inferences or determining an author’s purpose. But most of the things teachers spend hours on
every week were never endorsed by the National Reading Panel and have little or no data behind
them. As reading expert Tim Shanahan has observed, teaching such “skills” is like pushing the
elevator button twice: it might make you feel better, but it won’t make the elevator come any
faster.
Even when teachers focus on a strategy that is backed by evidence, they don’t implement it in the
way supported by research. Rather than putting a difficult text in the foreground and modeling
whatever strategies might help students extract its meaning, teachers put a strategy in the
foreground and choose simple texts that lend themselves to demonstrating it, without regard to
their topics. And they teach comprehension day after day, year after year—sometimes through
high school. But studies have shown that after only two weeksof strategy instruction, students
stop getting benefits.

After the teacher explains a comprehension “skill,” students go off to practice it on books at their
supposed individual reading levels—easy enough for them to read on their own or with minimal
help. But there’s no evidence that this system of leveled reading boosts comprehension, and
studies have found that kids can learn more from a text above their supposed level—if a teacher
helps them understand it. Plus, leveled reading does little to build knowledge, a process that
generally requires staying on the same topic for at least a couple of weeks. As with the texts
teachers use to model “skills,” the books children use to practice them aren’t organized by topic.

Another pervasive and dangerous misconception is the belief that students need to learn to read
before they can “read to learn”—that is, before they can start acquiring knowledge of the world,
through their own reading. As a result of this assumption, the elementary curriculum has long
been heavily weighted toward reading. That has become even more true in recent decades, due to
the advent of high-stakes testing in reading and math. Especially in schools where test scores are
low, subjects like history, science, and the arts have been squeezed out of the curriculum,
sometimes through middle school.

But the idea that kids don't need to acquire knowledge until after they’ve learned to read ignores
the fact that gaining knowledge is partof learning to read—or learning to understand what you
read. Even while they’re learning to decode, children need to listen to adults reading aloud from
sophisticated, knowledge-rich text. Otherwise, they’ll lack the knowledge and vocabulary that
will equip them to understand that kind of text once they’re able to decode it themselves. As any
parent knows, children can take in far more sophisticated concepts and language through
listening than through their own reading. That remains true, on average, through middle school.
And the longer we wait to start building kids’ knowledge, the harder it becomes to close
gaps between those lucky enough to acquire knowledge outside school and their less fortunate
peers.

In most places, the advent of the Common Core State Standards has only made things worse.
Previously, elementary students got a steady diet of fiction. In an effort to build knowledge, the
standards have called for at least 50% of their reading to be nonfiction. Most teachers, however,
have continued to focus on skills, adding new “nonfiction skills” like identifying different “text
structures.” But nonfiction assumes more background knowledge than fiction. It’s one thing to
make an inference about a fictional character’s thoughts, based on your knowledge of human
nature. It’s quite another to make an inference about, say, Brazil if you’ve never even heard of
the place.

Still, there are signs things are changing. Just a few years ago, there were no elementary literacy
curricula designed to build students’ knowledge. Now there are several—and two large urban
districts, Baltimore and Detroit, have each started implementing one, while the state of
Louisiana has been encouraging their adoption.

Ideally, prospective teachers will start getting accurate information about reading comprehension
during their training. But that may not happen anytime soon. Education schools have historically
been disconnected from scientific research on the learning process; their lack of interest in or
familiarity with phonics is only one example. The good news is that even once they’re on the
job, teachers can learn how to provide students not only with the skills they need to decode
words but also with the knowledge that can unlock their meaning.

Natalie Wexler

Senior Contributor

Natalie Wexler is the author of "The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America's Broken
Education System—and How to Fix It," forthcoming from Avery in August 2019. She
...

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32,163 viewsMay 3, 2019, 01:48pm

Tropical Cyclone Fani Hits The Indian

Coast
 Sarah FergusonBrand ContributorUNICEF USA

BRANDVOICE

As the powerful storm system advances, UNICEF has prepositioned emergency supplies and is
coordinating with local governments.

People evacuated for safety rest in a temporary cyclone relief shelter in Puri in the eastern
Indian state of Odisha on May 3, 2019, as Cyclone Fani approaches the Indian coastline.
© DIBYANGSHU SARKAR/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

PLEASE DONATE

Tropical Cyclone Fani made landfall Friday morning, May 3, near Puri, India, lashing beaches
with rain and wind gusting up to 127 mph. As the powerful weather system advances, bringing
storm surges and flooding, tens of millions of people living in large sections of
coastal India and Bangladesh are in harm's way.

Tens of millions in India and Bangladesh are in harm's way

Indian authorities evacuated more than a million people from the most vulnerable communities
along the low-lying east coast before the storm barreled into Odisha state. Fani has been
described as the strongest cyclone to hit the region since a similar system struck Odisha in 1999,
resulting in at least 10,000 deaths. On Thursday, May 2, maximum sustained winds reached 155
mph with gusts of up to 190 mph.

UNICEF is moving quickly to respond

The storm is expected to weaken as it moves north-northeast toward Kolkata, one of India's most
populous cities, and Bangladesh, where the government is working diligently to move hundreds
of thousands of people to higher ground. Fani is forecast to track near Cox's Bazar, where more
than a million Rohingya refugees live in makeshift settlements.
A view of flooding on Grand Road one hour after Cyclone Fani hit Puri, India on May 3, 2019.
© ARIJIT SEN/HINDUSTAN TIMES VIA GETTY IMAGES

UNICEF is supporting the government and partner NGOs to ensure that coastal radio stations are
broadcasting lifesaving messages and warnings. Emergency supplies have been prepositioned to
meet humanitarian needs of up to 100,000 people in the areas of water, sanitation and hygiene;
nutrition; child protection and education. Field-based staff are ready to be deployed to affected
areas to support emergency programs for affected children and families.

UNICEF helps before, during and after emergencies. Please donate now.

PLEASE DONATE

Sarah Ferguson Brand Contributor

Sarah Ferguson is a writer and critic whose work has appeared in The Guardian, Elle, Vogue,
New York Magazine, Mother Jones and The New York Times Book Review, among oth...
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A day in the Life of a Teen With Dyslexia

For teenagers with dyslexia, every class can be a struggle because they all involve some aspect of reading
and spelling. Dyslexia is also connected to some social, emotional and behavioral issues. Use this visual
guide to see how dyslexia can affect a high-schooler’s daily life.