Education Commons^™

Readers' Workshop In The Elementary Classroom, Alaina Terese Daters

Graduate Research Papers

In this research project, Reader's Workshop is defined and explored in relation to an elementary classroom setting. The literature review describes the importance of independent reading, the structures and components of readers' workshop, how readers' workshop motivates and engages readers, and finally how to get started with readers' workshop in the elementary classroom. Following the literature review, there is a three-year professional development plan that lays out the key components of readers' workshop and its format for training a staff on how to implement this structure into their elementary classroom. Year one of the professional development project discusses what reader's …

Effective Strategies For Reading Improvement, Susan Pelleymounter

Graduate Research Papers

Longfellow Elementary has had a history of poor results on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. To address the problem, many innovations have been implemented such as Small Group Reading Instruction, vocabulary building, phonemic awareness, and sight word instruction.

This study was completed in an effort to determine if what teachers did on a daily basis to teach reading had an impact on students. This is important because teachers need their teaching to be efficient and effective. Test scores must increase at our school and we need data to prove that what we are doing is worthwhile. The question for …

Strategies To Improve Reading Fluency In The Elementary Classroom, Jill Marie Vorwald Sampson

Graduate Research Papers

This paper examines the importance of instructing students in strategies to improve reading fluency. Research shows that very little class time is currently spent on teaching reading fluency and this paper provides instructional strategies that teachers can employ in their classrooms. The strategies discussed are Reader's Theater, paired reading, buddy reading, modeling, repeated reading, and Read Naturally.

Research has proven all of these strategies to be effective, and this literature review describes the usefulness of these strategies. The importance of reading fluency instruction and technology integration has also become a key issue as new technologies are regularly introduced. The use …

Orchestrating A Student's Reading Fluency In The Elementary Classroom, Sarah A. Yoder

Graduate Research Papers

As you listen to a piece of music, you hear the sound of instruments blending together to create a harmonious sound, to create a mood, or tell a story. With that same sense of coordination and ease a successful, fluent reader quietly orchestrates his/her reading to derive meaning from a text. It is common for teachers to have the goal of developing fluent, young readers in the elementary classroom, but it is often unclear how to go about obtaining this goal. This article is written for elementary teachers who want to foster fluent reading, but are unsure how to direct …

Best Practices In Teaching Reading Fluency In The Elementary Classroom, Tina Schneider

Graduate Research Papers

The focus of this review of literature was Best Practices for teaching reading fluency in the elementary classroom. Research shows that students' reading fluency rates need improvement. Teachers must create a classroom environment that fosters reading fluency and use research based teaching practices to improve students' reading fluency. Journal articles were selected that addressed best practices in teaching reading fluency in the elementary classroom. Reading fluency influences the academic success students attain at school and therefore it is a skill which must be taught. Because best practices have a positive impact on students' reading fluency rates, it is recommended that …

Literacy Volunteers In Elementary Classrooms : Why Do We Need Them And How Do We Train Them?, Laura Meyers

Graduate Research Papers

This project examines the need for specialized literacy volunteers, describes the uses of these volunteers in the elementary school classroom and provides a handbook that could be used to train literacy volunteers to work with students and staff. Surveys were sent to teachers in three elementary school buildings in northeast Iowa to gather input on perceived needs of students in the areas of reading and writing, opinions on specialized training for literacy volunteers and needs and uses of literacy volunteers in the classroom.

After gathering and evaluating data from teacher surveys and consulting current research in the field of reading …

Alternate Curriculum In Reading For Grade Four, Julie A. Schmit

Graduate Research Papers

Julie A. Schmit, a fourth grade teacher, specifically designed the two reading alternate units. These units were designed to provide challenging reading and learning experiences for talented and gifted students in grade four. These units provide challenging, above grade level materials and activities for the students whose reading, vocabulary, and language skills are advanced to such a degree that they would derive greater educational benefit from working with alternate materials.