Category: comprehension
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The Silent Crisis: Why So Many Middle Schoolers Struggle with Reading (And What We Can Do About It)
Hey there, fellow reading enthusiasts! If you’ve spent any time around middle schoolers, you’ve probably noticed something familiar: many students seem to have a complicated relationship with reading. Some devour books like it’s their job. Others avoid it whenever possible. And if you’re a teacher or parent, you’ve likely seen…
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Why Reading Strategies Aren’t Enough for True Comprehension
A student reads a passage about the Industrial Revolution. She’s been taught the moves: annotate as you go, look for the main idea, make inferences, summarize what you’ve read. She does all of it. She circles words, underlines sentences, writes a note in the margin that says important. She follows…
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Why Metacognition Isn’t Enough for Struggling Readers
Metacognitive strategies are vital for reading comprehension, yet many middle school students struggle despite using these techniques. This is often due to inefficient word recognition, which causes cognitive overload. Effective reading requires automatic word recognition and language comprehension, suggesting interventions should prioritize foundational skills over additional strategies.
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Disciplinary Literacy: Every Teacher’s Role
I recently had the chance to hear Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey speak about adolescent literacy. I’ve encountered their work before, but hearing them present it directly clarified something I’d been circling around in my own thinking. It also sharpened a distinction that I think gets lost in a lot…
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Understanding Reading Fluency: It’s Not About Speed
Picture two students finishing the same reading passage. The first moves through it quickly, her eyes tracking, pages turning, done in three minutes. Ask her what it was about, and she goes quiet. Something about cities, maybe? She’s not sure. The second reads slowly. He rereads sentences. He loses the…
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Why Some Readers Guess— and What That Actually Tells Us About Their Brains
That moment a student says “travel” for “transportation” isn’t careless. It’s a window into something much more interesting. An essay on compensatory reading strategies in adolescence Picture a sixth grader—confident, on task, reading aloud from a science textbook. The passage is about urban infrastructure. She moves through the sentences at…
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Clarity for Learning: A Reading Interventionist’s Secret Weapon (and a Free Emoji Rubric)
Last year, I had a group of struggling readers who were convinced they were just “bad at reading.” No matter how many phonics drills or comprehension strategies I guided them through, their confidence (and scores) remained stagnant. And, of course, that impacted their motivation and effort.
Teen Foundations: Foundational Skills for Older Students 