Here is an interesting article in how to effectively teach reading and writing

Reading and writing for understanding
HGSE Lecturer Vicki Jacobs

Secondary school students can benefit enormously when teachers of all subjects integrate reading and writing strategies into their instruction – so argues Harvard Graduate School of Education lecturer Vicki A. Jacobs. These strategies, typical of “reading and writing to learn” and “reading and writing across the curriculum,” are problem-solving activities designed to help students move from simply knowing a fact to understanding a fact’s significance. Helping students make that leap – from knowing to understanding – represents the very heart of the educational enterprise.

Reading and writing for understanding

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I would like to send a message of support to all those in the Bowcroft community: I have had the pleasure to meet, and begin working and collaborating with people whom are willing to discuss thorny issues, and try new ideas. Here are some recent ways that I have worked with teachers and supporters of learning:

September 12, 2007

I interrupted a conversation between the teaching assistants involved in literacy. They were wondering why the reading diagnostic tools used by teachers to assess student reading levels were difficult to align with one another. I claimed that I rarely looked a diagnostic test for reading until much closer to the first report card. I tried to learn how the kids read, how they found relevance and significance in the literature they were reading, and if they were not making sense, why they were not engaged. I suggested that they look at differentiating the reading process into the most significant aspects, and grouping kids around those main concepts: predicting, discussion and debate, analysis and synthesizing the main ideas and important aspects, building vocabulary with concept mapping, taking notes to support memory, fluency and confidence in reading aloud and silently, choice in reading material, and reading from different genres, which means becoming familiar with differing perspectives. So, I challenged them to think about moving beyond an isolated measure of reading ability to understand their kids as readers.

Here are some best practice ideas around reading that may be of some support:

Reading Rockets

Building A Powerful Reading Program: From Research to Practice

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