Research Suggests Every Teacher Should:

  1. Build disciplinary and world knowledge.  (AKA Background knowledge)
  2. Provide exposure to a volume and range of texts.
  3. Provide motivating texts and contexts for reading.
  4. Teach strategies for comprehending.
  5. Teach text structures.
  6. Engage students in discussion.
  7. Build vocabulary and language knowledge.
  8. Integrate reading and writing.
  9. Observe and assess.
  10. Differentiate instruction (Samuels & Farstrup, 2012, p. 52).

This list comes from my  new favorite book, What Research Says About Reading Instruction.  I just discovered there’s also a What Research Says About Vocabulary Instruction which I’ve put on my Amazon wish list.

I don’t think any of this is new news to anyone teaching reading, but it is wonderfully affirming news.  I realize that my weakness has been teaching text structure in non-fiction reading.  I’ve busily been collecting information on structure so I can work with it more than usual next year.  Last year my focus was student discussion.  I’ve been preparing a website at Collaborative Classroom to have my students have online discussions as “boardwork” when they enter the room, exit tickets before they leave the room, or in-depth discussions in the middle or for homework.  I love online discussions as it makes it possible for the teacher to monitor all the discussions not just those in earshot.

Samuels, S. J., & Farstrup, A. E. (2012). What research has to say about reading instruction. (fourth ed.). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.