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Traditionally, writing is produced when a person employs the basic mechanical skills of grammar and punctuation to organize vocabulary through a targeted text structure. Mastery of this complex process requires one to understand concepts of genre, voice, and higher-order thinking. The basic purpose is to communicate information, ideas, and stories (WETA, 2020).

In today's world, the definition of writing can be expanded to include digital storytelling as well (WETA, 2019). Images and soundtracks can join language, both written and oral, to form a kind of writing that can be particularly beneficial to helping struggling writers flourish in their storytelling and communication.

WETA. (2019, December 11). Digital Storytelling: Extending the potential for struggling writers. Reading Rockets. Retrieved November 15, 2022, from https://www.readingrockets.org/article/digital-storytelling-extending-potential-struggling-writers

WETA. (2020, October 16). Writing. Reading Rockets. Retrieved November 15, 2022, from https://www.readingrockets.org/teaching/reading-basics/writing

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More resources: Writing and Spelling (PBS Launching Young Readers series) Growing Writers (PBS Launching Young Readers series) Looking at Writing Writing: Course Module Writing Apps Topics A-Z: Writing A child's writing development parallels the child's development as a reader.

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Writing: Importance to Equity, Justice & Inclusivity

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Writing: Importance to Equity, Justice & Inclusivity

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Writing is hard for all students just starting out, but some kids struggle more than others. Luckily, we live in a digital age that provides us with some great technological tools to help all of our students succeed. For those who struggle with the physical act of writing by hand, there are keyboards, touch screens, and predictive and speech-to-text programs, among other tools that can help bridge the gap between our students' thoughts and the page in front of them. An occupational therapist or a special education teacher can often provide great advice on the best tool for an individual student's needs.

Spelling and grammar-check programs can also be of great help to new writers or those who are struggling. They are widely available and some Assisted Technology tools can further assist learners by "checking for incorrect words that sound alike or that don’t make sense in context". (WETA, 2019)

In addition to supporting students with learning needs, the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE, 2022) also highlights how important it is for educators to support “students’ right to their own language", which they define as "dialect that expresses their family and community identity" in addition to their "unique personal identity". For decades teachers have been the gatekeeper of this aspect of writing and personal voice, using concepts of mainstream English grammar and "propriety" to devalue the language students relate to most, especially students from minority backgrounds. It is important that students are taught that their language - both spoken and written - has value.

WETA. (2019, October 16). Assistive technology for writing. Reading Rockets. Retrieved November 16, 2022, from https://www.readingrockets.org/article/assistive-technology-writing

NCTE. (2022, November 2). Position statement on writing instruction in school. Retrieved November 17, 2022, from https://ncte.org/statement/statement-on-writing-instruction-in-school/

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Words we must understand to communicate effectively. Vocabulary includes words we use when listening, speaking, reading, and writing. It is key to reading comprehension.

WETA. Vocabulary. Reading Rockets. Retrieved November 7, 2022, from https://www.readingrockets.org/teaching/reading-basics/vocabulary.

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Comprehension is why we read. Students have good reading comprehension when they can use their background knowledge, vocabulary, language structure, and reading strategies to make sense of a text. More than just understanding the words on the page or the literal points that the author is making, reading comprehension strategies seek to allow readers to understand what is happening "between the lines".

Weta. (2022, September 7). Reading comprehension. Reading Rockets. Retrieved November 28, 2022, from https://www.readingrockets.org/teaching/reading-basics/comprehension

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Fluency is the ability to read aloud quickly and with expression in a way that sounds as if the reader is simply speaking naturally. Being able to do this requires that a reader recognize words automatically when reading silently. Without fluency, a student's reading will sound choppy, as they read word-by-word (WETA, 2020).

WETA. (2020, October 31). Phonics and decoding. Reading Rockets. Retrieved October 3, 2022, from https://www.readingrockets.org/teaching/reading-basics/phonics

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Fluency: Importance to Equity, Justice & Inclusivity

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Fluency: Importance to Equity, Justice & Inclusivity

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The United States has a literacy problem, with study after study showing massive rates of students unable to read at or above grade levels throughout our k-12 system. According to a Reading Plus (2021) survey of middle and high school principals, 63% of respondents cited students reading below grade level as the greatest challenge they face with their students’ literacy development. The same studies have shown that the achievement gap very much increases among students in high-poverty schools versus low-poverty schools (Eisenman, 2021). In 2018, 73% of Black students attended high-poverty schools compared to just 26% of white students (National Equity Atlas, n.d.)

According to Eisenman, one way to increase literacy among minority and high-poverty students is to build diverse content libraries in our schools and classrooms. She writes:

"When students read texts about people who look like they do and share their beliefs, customs, and history, they can be inspired. When students read these texts, they feel visible, appreciated, and respected. And these feelings can motivate them to read more, which can then help them acquire the skills and confidence needed to find reading success."

Eisenman, J. (2021, June 8). Why diversity and equity in content matters for reading growth. National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP). Retrieved October 3, 2022, from https://www.nassp.org/2021/06/08/why-diversity-and-equity-in-content-matters-for-reading-growth/

National Equity Atlas. (n.d.). School poverty: All youth should attend economically diverse, well-resourced schools. School poverty . Retrieved October 3, 2022, from https://nationalequityatlas.org/indicators/School_poverty#/

Reading Plus. “Middle and High School Principal Survey,” April 2021.

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Fluency: Importance to the ELA classroom

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Fluency: Importance to the ELA classroom

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We need students in our English Language Arts classroom to have achieved reading fluency because it is only after that skill is mastered that students are able to focus on the actual meaning of a text (WETA, 2020). To be able to comprehend words as they are recognized gives students the ability to unlock high-order skills, such as connecting newly read information with background knowledge and wider real-world contexts.

Students who have already developed fluency in reading will have an easier time completing ELA classroom assignments, while students who struggle with fluency face the tedious requirement of decoding words before attempting to make sense of a passage's meaning, all of which has to be done before being able to complete any accompanying school work.

WETA. (2020, October 31). Phonics and decoding. Reading Rockets. Retrieved October 3, 2022, from https://www.readingrockets.org/teaching/reading-basics/phonics

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There are a variety of activities and lessons that we can use to help improve fluency. According to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (2000), the number one strategy for improving students' fluency skills is repeated reading. Repeated reading has two essential characteristics, first, giving students the ability to read and re-read the same text, and second, having students read out loud with correction and guidance from an instructor or parent (WETA, 2019).

Two other classroom activities that can be used to encourage and maintain reading fluency in the classroom are choral and cloze readings. Choral reading asks that students read out loud all together with the teacher, who leads the pace and models proper inflections, stress and tone. Cloze reading is similar in that the teacher is reading aloud, however, in Cloze reading students follow along silently, only reading a word aloud when the teacher pauses at it. The omitted word will generally be an important vocabulary or content word, not a simple sight word.

Both Choral and Cloze readings are great alternatives to Round Robin or popcorn reading, which was a technique that asked students to take individual turns reading small portions of the text aloud to the class. This technique should be avoided for two reasons: first, it can set students will less fluency up for embarrassment and bullying, and second, students are often so focused on which section will be theirs that they are counting lines and reading ahead to practice instead of paying attention to the content of the text.

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel. Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. NIH Publication No. 00-4769. Washington, D.C.:U.S. Government Printing Office.

WETA. (2019, November 11). Developing fluent readers. Reading Rockets. Retrieved October 3, 2022, from https://www.readingrockets.org/article/developing-fluent-readers

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What is a Cloze Read and how does it help your students?

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Phonics is the mapping of speech sounds to letters and letter patterns. While phonological and phonemic awarenesses focus on the sounds of language and linguistics, phonics is the step that connects those sounds with the literacies of reading and writing (State Government of Victori, 2019).

State Government of Victoria. (2019). Phonological awareness. Department of Education and Training Victoria. Retrieved October 3, 2022, from https://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/teachingresources/discipline/english/literacy/readingviewing/Pages/litfocusphonological.aspx#link1

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Writing: Importance to the ELA classroom

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Writing: Importance to the ELA classroom

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While much focus in ELA is placed on reading, writing is an equally important literacy skill, and one could argue, the next step after reading. From systemic phonics instruction to grammar, vocabulary strategies, and other "essential food groups" (, ELA teachers are constantly helping students build the skills they need to critically consume text. But what do our students do with what they have consumed? They write about it - expanding on their readings with their own thoughts and interpretations, creating instead of just consuming.

Like reading, writing is very much multi-disciplinary, as now more than ever it in at the core of human communication.

The Melissa Institute for Violence Prevention and Treatment. (2021). A Framework for Understanding and Teaching Literacy . The Balanced Literacy Diet . Retrieved November 17, 2022, from http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/balancedliteracydiet/Home/index.html

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Phonics: Importance to the ELA classroom

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Phonics: Importance to the ELA classroom

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When students understand that there are predictable relationships between sounds and letters, they are able to figure out unfamiliar words. This process of being able to decode sound–letter correspondence is one of the first steps to reading with fluency (WETA, 2020).

Since reading comprehension is pivotal to our work in English Language Arts, it is important that students master the basics of phonics. Once that mastery is established, students will have a solid foundation to memorize and manipulate more complex parts of reading in the English language, such as silent letters that help differentiate homophones and provide context clues to word origins.

When students are able to identify words quickly and effortlessly they can focus on the meaning of what they are reading (Stanovich, 1986).

While students at the secondary level generally have the basics of phonics mastered, it is important to note that students with reading disabilities, such as dyslexia, and students who are learning English as a new language, are among some of the categories of secondary-level learners that may still need explicit and systematic phonics instruction. Students learning English will benefit greatly from learning phonics instruction in the ELA classroom, as in many cases their native language may have similar sound-letter correspondences to English that are just different enough to be obstacles to reading English with fluency.

Stanovich, K. E. (1986). Matthew effects in reading: Some consequences of individual differences in the acquisition of literacy. Reading Research Quarterly, 21, 360-407.

WETA. (2020, October 31). Phonics and decoding. Reading Rockets. Retrieved October 3, 2022, from https://www.readingrockets.org/teaching/reading-basics/phonics

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Phonics instruction teaches the relationships between the letters of written language and the sounds of spoken language. To read, children need to understand the alphabetic principle - the idea that letters represent the sounds of spoken language. Decoding is when we use letter-sound relationships to translate a printed word into speech.

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Phonological awareness is our ability to recognize and manipulate the spoken parts of sentences and words (Phonological and Phonemic Awareness: Introduction).

The Center for Effective Reading Instruction and The International Dyslexia Association. (n.d.). Phonological and Phonemic Awareness: Introduction [web log]. Retrieved September 12, 2022, from https://www.readingrockets.org/teaching/reading101-course/modules/phonological-and-phonemic-awareness-introduction.

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Phonological Awareness: Importance to the ELA classroom

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Phonological Awareness: Importance to the ELA classroom

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Phonological Awareness is important in the high school English Language Arts classroom because lacking awareness of speech sounds can result in poor spelling, inaccurate decoding of new words, mispronunciation of words, and difficulty remembering or recalling new words (Moats, et al, 2009).

Moats, L, & Tolman, C (2009). Excerpted from Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS): The Speech Sounds of English: Phonetics, Phonology, and Phoneme Awareness (Module 2). Boston: Sopris West. https://www.readingrockets.org/article/phonological-instruction-older-students

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Moats, L, & Tolman, C (2009). Excerpted from Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS): The Speech Sounds of English: Phonetics, Phonology, and Phoneme Awareness (Module 2). Boston: Sopris West.

For more information on Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS) visit Voyager Sopris .

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Phonological Instruction for Older Students

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Additional and explicit instruction in phonological awareness is a critical component in helping fourth grade readers who struggle with phonological deficits. The exercises can be used as a warm-up prior to reading, spelling, or vocabulary instruction.

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Phonological Awareness: Importance to Equity, Justice & Inclusivity

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Phonological Awareness: Importance to Equity, Justice & Inclusivity

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Many of our students might not have been exposed to "white mainstream English" growing up. Maybe they are from another country or maybe they are from the mountains of Appalachia or the inner city of Chicago or the bayous of New Orleans, but not having that exposure as a child means it is very unlikely that they will be able to gain the sounds to needed produce the accent that for a long time was considered the only "professional" way to speak (Lippi-Green, 2012).

That fact needs to be considered and accepted so we are not belittling or demoralizing the language our students use to communicate. Punishing students for the way they speak is a form of racism and discrimination and should be treated as such.

Lippi-Green, Rosina. (2012). English with an accent : language, ideology and discrimination in the United States. London ; New York :Routledge, https://canvas.fau.edu/courses/35220/files/26936215

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Phonological Awareness: Activities and Lessons

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Phonological Awareness: Activities and Lessons

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It is difficult to practice phonological awareness with high school students because much of what needs to be acquired in such a pursuit should have been learned as a small child. There are however ways in which we can improve our students' phonological awareness, particularly among our ESOL students.

One example is the activity shown in the picture above, which was taken in an adult ESOL learning center. Now, it is important to note that phonological awareness deals only with speaking, not reading or writing or any other use of letters, but what this activity does is help students connect the sounds of English with vocabulary. For example, in the "FL" box that students open they will find toy flags, flamingos, flashlights, and other items whose name begins with the "fl" onset blend. Identifying each item out loud will help a student struggling to make the "fl" blend sound by creating a practical, hands-on approach to vocabulary that encourages them to practice the sound and how it's used. Maybe they have the word "flag" down but struggle with other words beginning with "fl", this activity can help them link the pronunciations.

Other activities include warm-up exercises before reading, spelling, or vocabulary instruction begins (Moats, et al, 2009). A teacher could ask students to recognize whether a word was pronounced correctly, model reading new words or names or ask students to say new vocabulary words out loud.

Moats, L, & Tolman, C (2009). Excerpted from Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS): The Speech Sounds of English: Phonetics, Phonology, and Phoneme Awareness (Module 2). Boston: Sopris West. https://www.readingrockets.org/article/phonological-instruction-older-students

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Phonics: Importance to Equity, Justice & Inclusivity

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Phonics: Importance to Equity, Justice & Inclusivity

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The first thing we can do to create an equitable and inclusive classroom literacy culture is to see all students as literacy learners (Kluth & Chandler-Olcott, 2017). This means that instead of dividing our students by skills and abilities, we can work to broaden our instruction and our definitions of literacy to include all levels of ability.

Making sure all students have access to a variety of writing tools and print materials can also drastically increase the phonics and literacy rates of all students.

Kluth and Chandler-Olcott (2017), in an article based on their 2007 book “A Land We Can Share”: Teaching Literacy to Students with Autism, suggest some of the following: setting up an interactive bulletin board (e.g., “our favorite words”, “mix and match poetry”) or word wall; arranging shelves or boxes with various levels and types of reading materials including books, magazines, newspapers, comic books, and student-created products; and creating a writing or communication center with different types of writing materials (e.g., paper, pens, pencils, markers, rubber stamps, interesting writing paper, dictionary).

Kluth, P., & Chandler-Olcott, K. (2017, December 11). Inclusive literacy learning. Reading Rockets. Retrieved October 3, 2022, from https://www.readingrockets.org/article/inclusive-literacy-learning

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Oral language, or linguistics, involves listening and speaking and is the kind of communication that most human brains are hardwired to learn at a very young age (Fisher, et al, 2014). The average child begins learning oral language from its very first days of life. Listening comprehension and the ability of students to talk about that comprehension outpaces reading comprehension from early childhood through at least middle school (Fisher, et al, 2014).

Fisher, D & Frey, N. (2014). Speaking and Listening in Content Area Learning. Reading Rockets, https://www.readingrockets.org/article/speaking-and-listening-content-area-learning

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Why it matters: "Sound Houses" and ELA learning

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Why it matters: "Sound Houses" and ELA learning

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Phonological awareness is important because the skills it takes to be able to recognize and manipulate the spoken parts of sentences and words are acquired at an early age. Lippi-Green calls these sets of sounds our "Sound Houses", using a metaphor to explain how the way we build the human vocal apparatus is like having a set of building materials, the basics of which - vowels and consonants - are bricks. She explains that people are born with language blueprints wired into their brains, but the materials we use to build our "Sound House" come from those around us. Once we get to a certain age the blueprints are gone, however, and we are stuck with the basics of what we have already built, which is why it is impossible for people to lose or create entire accents or phonemes that we were not familiar with as children (Lippi-Green, 2012, p. 48-51).

This is important to know in the ELA classroom, particularly at a high school level, because as educators we must understand our students and where they are coming from. One cannot expect an ESOL student to speak like a native English speaker. Any expectations of such will lead to failure. We can also expect ESOL students to need us to speak slower as they acquire not just the English language, but also its unique sounds.

Lippi-Green, Rosina. (2012). English with an accent : language, ideology and discrimination in the United States. London ; New York :Routledge, https://canvas.fau.edu/courses/35220/files/26936215

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Lippi-Green--English with an Accent.pdf: University Center for Excellence in Writing

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Download Lippi-Green--English with an Accent.pdf (4.32 MB)

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Oral Language: Importance to ELA Classroom

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Oral Language: Importance to ELA Classroom

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K-12 classrooms across the country have been struggling to increase students' reading levels for decades. While we talk about the many differences in which most children learn oral language versus reading, it is also important to note the ways in which linguistics can help support reading skills. If we want students to read at more sophisticated levels, we should be encouraging them to discuss topics of that reading because increasing listening comprehension can help increase reading comprehension (Fisher, et al, 2014).

Fisher, D & Frey, N. (2014). Speaking and Listening in Content Area Learning. Reading Rockets, https://www.readingrockets.org/article/speaking-and-listening-content-area-learning

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Linking reading material to classroom discussions and small group work is a great way to help students improve their reading, speaking, and listening skills while boosting comprehension levels (Fisher, et al, 2014).

Readers theater is another way in which students can use their reading and speaking skills together to help improve both. Readers theater involves students creating or reading a script and acting out scenes to the rest of the class while others listen. One way to make this extra entertaining is by having students create a script out of an informational text, merging creativity into what can sometimes feel like dry reading to our students (Fisher, et al, 2014).

Fisher, D & Frey, N. (2014). Speaking and Listening in Content Area Learning. Reading Rockets, https://www.readingrockets.org/article/speaking-and-listening-content-area-learning

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Oral Language: Importance to Equity, Justice & Inclusivity

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Oral Language: Importance to Equity, Justice & Inclusivity

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For far too long, students were told that their way of oral communication was wrong. From accents to US dialects such as Black Language, the education system in the United States took a rigid stance that the only "correct" way of speaking was what some now refer to as white mainstream English (Baker-Bell, 2020). A massive way in which we can support equity, justice and inclusivity efforts in the ELA classroom is to do away with such a mentality.

Students should be taught that the way they speak at home is right and valuable. While there are various ways we can speak English - some of which are deemed by society to be more "professional" - our language is morally neutral and that should be made clear. There are several ways to do this. One is by reading books and other materials that use the language of the marginalized to tell a story, such as Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. After such readings, the class should talk about the language used and how it enriched the story the author was trying to tell.

We should also do away with correcting students' oral language, particularly if the way they are speaking is clear and correct in its own way. For example, in Black Language, there exists a "habitual be" that is part of the grammar of that dialect. The use of the habitual be is not wrong and shouldn't be corrected during regular classroom time. If you want students to use white mainstream English in a presentation, that should be talked about and contextualized so that it does not come off as placing a judgment on one language as "right" and another as "wrong" - they're all just different, just like our students.

Baker-Bell, A. (2020). "We Been Knowin": Toward an Antiracist Language & Literacy Education. Journal of language and literacy education, 16.

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Is important that lessons in phonics are both systematic and explicit, as research shows that these tenets in phonics instruction significantly improve children's word recognition, spelling, and reading comprehension (WEDA, 2020).

Systematic: the letter-sound relationship is taught in an organized and logical sequence

Explicit: the instruction provides precise directions for learning letter-sound relationships

For example, it is important that we teach "high-utility" sound-letter relations before adding "lower utility" relations. We should then introduce consonant blends or clusters in separate lessons (Chard & Osborn, 2018).

Chard, D. J., & Osborn, J. (2018, November 14). Phonics and word recognition instruction in early reading programs: Guidelines for children with reading disabilities. Reading Rockets. Retrieved October 3, 2022, from https://www.readingrockets.org/article/phonics-and-word-recognition-instruction-early-reading-programs-guidelines-children-reading

WETA. (2020, October 31). Phonics and decoding. Reading Rockets. Retrieved October 3, 2022, from https://www.readingrockets.org/teaching/reading-basics/phonics

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Vocabulary: Importance to Equity, Justice & Inclusivity

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Vocabulary: Importance to Equity, Justice & Inclusivity

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In the United States, white students have historically scored higher than Black students and other minorities on most measures of literacy (Cohen, 2012). This has been called the "White-Black literacy gap". Since literacy is one of the key measures used to determine the quality of education, such disparity suggests a major problem in the world of literacy and education in general. By focusing efforts to increase minority student vocabulary knowledge, and in turn comprehension (WETA, 2022), educators have a chance to help reform the literacy gap.

Cohen, D., White, S., & Cohen, S. (2012). Mind the Gap: The Black-White Literacy Gap in the National Assessment of Adult Literacy and Its Implications. Journal of Literacy Research. Retrieved November 7, 2022, from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.1177/1086296X12439998.

WETA. Vocabulary. Reading Rockets. Retrieved November 7, 2022, from https://www.readingrockets.org/teaching/reading-basics/vocabulary.

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Round Robin

Step 1: Get into groups of 3 to 4 students.
Step 2: Each person starts a story and gets 3-5 minutes to write.
Step 3: Rotate stories, repeat until each member has written on each story.
Step 4: Share!

Letters to the Past

Step 1: Pick a specific point in your past.
Step 2: Write a letter to that self. Tell yourself how things are going now. Give yourself advice. Ask yourself questions.

Found First Lines

Step 1: Go out into the world, listen to people's conversations.
Step 2: Write down lines from those conversations.
Step 3: Try using one of those lines as the first line in your own writing.

Creative Writing Exercises for High School. (2015, October 26). Retrieved from https://study.com/academy/popular/creative-writing-exercises-for-high-school.html.

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Comprehension: Importance to Equity, Justice & Inclusivity

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Comprehension: Importance to Equity, Justice & Inclusivity

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Knowing and understanding our students' background is pivotal to setting them up for success in terms of reading comprehension. One study (O’Reilly et al., 2019) found that there is a direct correlation between student background knowledge, including vocabulary, and their comprehension when reading about a specific topic.

This is important to equity, justice and inclusion because students from minority communities may lack the background knowledge that students from more mainstream communities take for granted. As educators, it is important that we identify needed background knowledge, be that vocabulary or other items, and check-in with our students to make sure that we are meeting them where they actually are, not where we assume they are. Background knowledge is built from our experiences with the world around us, but it is important to remember that we each have different experiences and at times, come from different worlds.

One way to highlight that our background knowledge is different without attaching a moral value to it is by having students teach us about things they know that we likely don't, maybe that means their vocabulary or "slang", text abbreviations or something specific to their generation's culture.

O’Reilly, T., Wang, Z., & Sabatini, J. (2019). How much knowledge is too little? when a lack of knowledge becomes a barrier to comprehension. Psychological Science, 30(9), 1344–1351. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797619862276

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Vocabulary: Importance to the ELA classroom

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Vocabulary: Importance to the ELA classroom

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The link between vocabulary development and reading comprehension is strong, with research showing that quality vocabulary instruction has positive effects on other core reading skills (Broderick, 2022) that we need in an ELA classroom.

At the same time, one well-known study by Nagy and Anderson (1984) found that students can only fully learn 400 words per year from teachers. This means that teachers need to choose carefully what vocabulary words they choose to focus on. How to make that decision is still up for discussion, as there is not a general consensus in the field (Broderick, 2022).

Broderick, Thomas, "Transformative Vocabulary: Fusing Vocabulary Instruction with Citizenship Education" (2022). Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS) in Literacy. 15. https://digitalcommons.sacredheart.edu/lit/15

Nagy, W. E., & Anderson, R. C. (1984). How Many Words are There in Printed School English?Reading Research Quarterly (Vol. 19, pp. 304–30). Retrieved from https://search-ebscohost- com.sacredheart.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ296720&site=eho st-live&scope=site

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Comprehension: Importance to the ELA classroom

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Comprehension: Importance to the ELA classroom

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Comprehension is the point of it all. Without comprehension none of the things we read or write really matter. It is at the heart of all communication and language because it is what makes communication and language useful.

Because comprehension is so important to the ELA classroom, we must make sure we are willing to expand our preconceived notions about English Language Arts. For instance, WestEd, an educational research nonprofit, in a 2016 study, found that the use of audiobooks could provide a massive boost in student comprehension (Flynn, et al, 2016). The study evaluated students just listening, without following along with a text, and found that the students outperformed the control group "across all measures, by 3.0x in reading comprehension".

Such studies show that ELA teachers should be open to new ideas that not only help support reading comprehension but also the development of real-world practices (Willingham, 2016), such as the use of audiobooks, when developing classroom curricula.

Flynn, K., Matlen, B., Atienza, S., and Schneider, S. (2016). How Listening Drives Improvement in Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension: A Study of Promise Using Tales2Go. San Francisco: WestEd.

Willingham, D. (May 2016). Knowledge and Practice: The Real Keys to Critical Thinking. Knowledge Matters, Issue Brief #1

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Directed Reading-Thinking Activity (WETA, 2022)

Step 1: Brainstorm with students about what the text might be about based on title and other available features before reading.

Step 2: Have students make predictions about the text in their DRTA Prediction Log worksheet (linked here).

Step 3: Students read the text, circling predictions they got right along the way and citing text evidence. Students cross out predictions they got wrong.

Step 4: Class discussion about right and wrong predictions, what surprised them, etc.

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Exit Slips (Bafile, 2004)

Exit slips can be a useful informal check for comprehension, as teachers can use the practice to gather information from students regarding what they understood from the day's lesson. It also helps students reflect on what they have learned and synthesize that knowledge, which builds on their comprehension skills as reflection asks students to think critically.

Bafile, C. (2004). "Let It Slip!" Daily Exit Slips Help Teachers Know What Students Really Learned. Education World. Retrieved November 28, 2022, from https://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/profdev/profdev091.shtml

WETA. (2022, March 2). Directed reading thinking activity (DRTA): Classroom strategy. Reading Rockets. Retrieved November 28, 2022, from https://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/drta

DRTA Prediction Log worksheet: https://www.readingrockets.org/content/pdfs/DRTA%20Prediction%20Log.pdf

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List-group-label

Step 1: Select a main concept from a text
Step 2: Have students brainstorm words they know that relate to the topic, write down every suggestion where students can view them.
Step 3: Put students into groups and have them create sub-categories for the words the class came up with. Ask them to prepare reasoning as to why they made the sub-categories they did, how they relate to the subject, and why certain words belong in each.
Step 4: Have students come up with labels for the groups they created based on how the groups relate to the main concept.

WETA. List-Group-Label. Reading Rockets. Retrieved November 7, 2022, from https://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/list_group_label.

Possible Sentences

Step 1: Choose vocab words and share them with students by writing or displaying in classroom.
Step 2: Define the words, together or in groups and pair related words together.
Step 3: In groups, students will write sentences using their word pairs. Sentences should be unique to each group and should reflect what might be found in the text they read.

Step 4: Have students compare their sentences with sentences in the actual text.

Step 5: Students revise sentences based on their comparison with texts.

WETA. Possible Sentences. Reading Rockets. Retrieved November 7, 2022, from https://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/possible_sentences

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Lenski, S. D., Wham, M. A., & Johns, J. L. (1999). Reading and learning strategies for middle and high school students. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt.

Taba, H. (1967).Teacher's handbook for elementary social studies. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Tierney, R.J., & Readence, J.E. (2000). Reading strategies and practices: A compendium (5th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

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List-group-label is a form of semantic mapping. The strategy encourages students to improve their vocabulary and categorization skills and learn to organize concepts. Categorizing listed words, through grouping and labeling, helps students organize new concepts in relation to previously learned concepts.