Implementing the Text Structure Strategy in Your Classroom

In this Reading Rockets article, you will learn how to implement a research-based strategy to improve reading comprehension by focusing on text structures. The authors use the Text Structure Strategy (TSS) to explore the text structures of comparison, cause and effect, problem and solution, sequence, and description and how hierarchical text structures are usually a…

Teaching Text Structure

In this overview from Reading Rockets on teaching text structure, you’ll learn about the 5 most common text structures (narrative, descriptive, expository, procedural/instructional, and argumentative/persuasive) and their features and how to help students learn to identify and use text structures in their reading and writing. The article also provides downloadable printables that can be used…

Syntax: Somewhere between Words and Text

In this International Dyslexia Association Perspectives article, Nancy Chapel Eberhardt discusses instructional practices to teach grammar and syntax with a focus that will increase the reader’s understanding of complex texts. This article will give educators examples of how to use a Function-Based Instructional Approach in their classrooms, including sentence expansion, using because but so, and…

Reading Comprehension Development and Difficulties: An Overview

In this International Dyslexia Association Perspectives article, Kate Cain explores the topic of reading comprehension and how language skills develop. The article explains how vocabulary acquisition, understanding of sentence structure and how sentences work together, the ability to infer and integrate information, and building a mental model of the text’s meaning while you are reading…

Supporting Reading Comprehension Development

In this International Dyslexia Association Perspectives article, authors Jane Oakhill and Kate Cain explore the factors supporting reading comprehension beyond basic decoding and suggest critical skills that should form the core of literacy instruction and interventions to support poor reading comprehension. The article outlines which skills are critical, such as teaching specific vocabulary words, how to…

Critical Thinking: Why is it so hard to teach?

In this Reading Rockets article, Daniel Willingham explores the topic of critical thinking and how to foster metacognitive skills in the classroom. Willingham notes that background knowledge plays a role in critical thinking and understanding the surface structure of problems. He provides evidence-based strategies, such as promoting thinking within a particular domain to bring everyday…

Knowledge and Practice: The Real Keys to Critical Thinking

In this Knowledge Matters Campaign article, Daniel Willingham explores the factors that lead to critical thinking skills, noting that background, or domain knowledge, plays a key factor. Willingham notes, « background knowledge is absolutely integral to effectively deploying important cognitive processes, » suggesting that facts that are taught need to be meaningful, can be learned incidentally and…