Summarizing teaches students how to take a large selection of text and reduce it to the main points for a more concise understanding. Upon reading a passage, summarizing helps students learn to determine essential ideas and consolidate important details that support them. It is a technique that enables students to focus on keywords and phrases of an assigned text that are worth noting and remembering. Downloadable graphic organizers are linked to the lesson.

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

The ability to read historical documents including contemporary explications about societal, economic and political issues provides a direct link to literacy as preparation for citizenship. As in the other disciplines, schools are unique sites for youth across class and ethnic boundaries to learn to read such documents and to develop the skills to engage in such reading for college and career success.

Reading complex literary texts offers unique opportunities for students to wrestle with some of the core ethical dilemmas that we face as human beings. The growth of ethical reasoning is one of the most compelling reasons for schools to develop students' capacities to read complex works of literature. Students who enter high school as struggling readers are quite capable of engaging with such texts, in part because these same students are often wrestling with complex challenges in their own lives.

Of all the academic disciplines taught in middle and high school, the one we least expect to entail reading extended texts is in mathematics, but math texts present special literacy problems and challenges for young readers.

The demands of comprehending scientific text are discipline specific and are best learned by supporting students in learning how to read a wide range of scientific genres. Besides text structures emphasizing cause and effect, sequencing and extended definitions, as well as the use of scientific registers, evaluating scientific arguments requires additional skill sets for readers.

Engaged, accountable reading requires students to interpret, and respond, often creatively. This article suggests several personalized ways to hold students accountable for their reading.

Fluency is the missing piece of the reading puzzle for many older students. They can decode, but they cannot do it automatically and accurately enough to comprehend text. Here are some fluency-building activities to complement content delivery. See also Teach Students How to Fluently Read Multisyllabic Content Vocabulary.

What is meant by "school climate", and how can you assess the climate at your school? Read on for helpful definitions, assessment ideas, tools, and resources.

Students should learn specific vocabulary and academic language to comprehend content text, but they should also become independent in understanding and owning vocabulary. This article offers tips for developing students' "vocabulary ownership."

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.

Dropout decisions may involve up to 25 significant factors, ranging from parenthood to learning disabilities. The most effective interventions address the various factors and employ multiple strategies, including personal asset building, academic support, and family outreach. A list of 50 exemplary programs is included.

Research-based information and advice for sizing up reading programs and finding the right one for your child with a learning disability.

Many reading programs claim to boost student performance, but how is that measured? Johns Hopkins University examined more than 200 published studies to create this quick guide to programs.

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 within a relatively short time period can boost students' decoding skills by several grade levels.

The 9th grade year is critical to students' success in high school - the influence of a broader number of peers (both positive and negative); the potential of developing bad habits such as skipping class; and entry into a larger, sometimes seemingly less caring, environment can all impact how students will react.

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 throughout the year.

Vocabulary instruction is an important part of reading and language arts classes, as well as content-area classes such as science and social studies. By giving students explicit instruction in vocabulary, teachers help them learn the meaning of new words and strengthen their independent skills of constructing the meaning of text.

Teachers should provide opportunities for students to engage in high-quality discussions of the meaning and interpretation of texts in various content areas as one important way to improve their reading comprehension.

Writing enables students to process, organize, formulate, and extend their thinking about what they have been learning. In addition, teachers can also assign writing to help students evaluate what they know and understand about a topic. These writing-to-learn strategies help foster students' abilities to make predictions, build connections, raise questions, discover new ideas, and promote higher-level thinking.