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RW Publications

A State-Level Networking Event and Webinar to Promote Research-Based Practices in Adolescent Literacy

State and Regional Professional Development providers are invited to attend a special webinar and networking event to hear directly from a national team about their upcoming AERA presentation, new online resources from Adlit.org, and new grant opportunities.

RW Publications

What can the simple view of reading teach us about disciplinary literacy?

According to the simple view of reading, reading comprehension is the product of students’ word recognition ability and language comprehension. If students can decode well but don’t understand the words, they won’t comprehend the text. On the other hand, students with strong...

RW Publications

Disciplinary Expert and Pedagogical Texts: Implications for Creating Text Sets

Our students benefit when we are explicit about the literacy skills required to succeed in our discipline. Using small excerpts of disciplinary expert text can help enliven disciplinary thinking in your classroom and improve the text sets you may be currently using.

Support Argumentative Writing and Classroom Debate with Organizers

Creating and responding to cogent arguments requires that students take a position and that they understand the limitations of their own perspective.

RW Publications

Constrained and unconstrained skill development: Why it matters for secondary students

Researchers have found the constrained/unconstrained distinction helpful in thinking about why some skills are more amenable to intervention than others and why the effects of some high-impact interventions tend to “fade out”.

Anticipation Guide

This prereading guide is designed to generate interest in an upcoming lesson and force students to find textual support for information. The anticipation guide activates background knowledge, challenges preconceived notions, and gives students a clear purpose for reading.

Elements of Nonfiction Scavenger Hunt

The Elements of Nonfiction Scavenger Hunt guides students as they review text and discover a purpose for reading. This strategy helps provide a foundation for teaching students what "good readers do" and can be applied to more complex texts across disciplines.

Teaching Academic Vocabulary Words

In a recent study in Reading Research Quarterly, we examine what features make words harder for adolescent learners. In this post, I show how teaching connections between words can help students master academic vocabulary.

RW Publications

The Many Facets of Critical Disciplinary Literacy

The Many Facets of Critical Disciplinary Literacy is a heuristic that we use to help organize resources and professional learning.

Looking for Support: Adolescent Literacy Interventions

Looking for Support: Adolescent Literacy Interventions by Joshua Lawrence and Austin Evans identifies the gaps in the middle and high school literacy research and strategies by the Institute for Education Sciences (IES) and their website the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC).

Reading Ways Approaches to Building Regional Networks

In 2020, Reading Ways was contracted to produce a series of professional learning experiences centered on Literacy education for school and district leaders. Now awarded our second contract, Reading Ways is extending the network to school leaders, developing a second series.

WordGen: Literacy Development Through Academic Language and Discussion

Word Generation is a cross-content literacy program designed to teach academic language and argumentation in ELA, social studies, science, and math. The program uses compelling topics to engage adolescents in meaningful academic language development work.