Articles and Videos
1. This Reading Teacher magazine has an excellent article about how to teach reading comprehension and how it is affected by a variety of factors. What I really like is that the author summarizes in chart form what the student brings to the text, the demands of the text, and the situation of the lesson. She then gives examples of activities to use for each one. She also discusses easy-to-implement comprehension activities to use occasionally such as DRTA (students make predictions before/as they read then recheck after they read), ReQuest (teachers and students take turns asking questions about what they have just read), and Think-alouds (teachers read a section to students, stopping to model what they are thinking about). Here is my favorite quote: “There are no generic worksheets that can provide activities appropriate for each text and group of readers; only informed teachers can create this kind of instruction.”
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2. Teaching Reading K-2: A Library of Classroom Practices is a video library that features the teaching practices of a diverse cross-section of kindergarten through second grade teachers from across the country. The teachers introduce their students to reading through a variety of methodologies. The library includes nine half-hour classroom videos showing teachers and students engaged in effective reading practices; three half-hour longitudinal videos that show individual students developing reading skills over time; and one half-hour library overview.
3. I found this great, brief article published by the Florida Reading Association about technology and phonological awareness with live links to the Web sites the children can use for practicing the different phonological categories discussed. The sites are excellent, and the explanations are succinct and clear. There is also a good phonological awareness continuum chart. Cut and paste the url into your browser for direct access to article.
http://www.flreads.org/Publications/quarterly/samples/phonological_awareness.htm
4. Reading Practice Can Strengthen Brain Highways is a fascinating article from NPR.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121253104&sc=emaf
5. The Classroom Strategy section of Reading Rockets is designed to share with teachers what research suggests are the most effective ways to build fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and writing skills. There is an excellent live link list with all the strategy articles currently on the site. It includes guidance in chart form on when to use each strategy. It allows you to quickly determine if a particular strategy should be used before, during, and/or after reading. An excellent resource.
http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies
6. Article by a kindergarten teacher titled Ways Technology Supports Early Literacy. Good background information.
http://homepage.mac.com/dara_feldman/Techsl.html
7. This is the first in a series of articles that looks at how the Internet and other technological and social forces are changing the way people read. Both sides of the issue are presently passionately, honestly, and clearly. This is a very worthwhile read for all of us.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/books/27reading.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
