Reading Matters
Scarborough’s Reading ____ offers a view of the braided strands of skills, such as decoding & verbal reasoning.
What is ROPE?
Comprehension relies on two, interconnected abilities: word reading (being able to decode the symbols on the page) and language comprehension (being able to understand the _________ of the words and sentences).
What is MEANING?
This type of vocabulary—often found in academic texts but not tied to one subject—is essential for building comprehension across content areas.
What is TIER 2 VOCABULARY?
Kids express their desire for this r-word when they ask, "Why does this matter?" or "Why do I need to learn this?"
What is RELEVANCE?
A student who can make logical guesses based on textual clues and prior knowledge is demonstrating this comprehension skill.
What is INFERENCING?
The Simple View of Reading says that reading comprehension is the product of two skills: ______ + oral language comprehension.
What is DECODING?
In 1990 scholar Rudine Sims Bishop famously explained that books act as "mirrors, _________, and sliding glass doors."
What is WINDOWS?
Teaching students how to use prefixes, roots, and suffixes to figure out word meaning involves instruction in this area.
What is MORPHOLOGY?
Many teachers recognize that during independent or pleasure reading, there will also be some students who look like they are playing the part, but have mastered the uncover skill of ______ reading.
What is FAKE?
When students struggle to analyze how word choice impacts tone, this component of literacy instruction helps them slow down and study carefully enough to connect language to meaning.
Phonological awareness is the ability to hear and work with the individual ________ in spoken words, like syllables, rhymes, and individual phonemes.
What is SOUNDS?
This organizational feature of a text—such as sequence, compare and contrast, or cause and effect—helps readers make sense of how ideas are connected.
What is TEXT STRUCTURE?
When a teacher pre-teaches key terms before a complex text to support comprehension, they are using this vocabulary strategy.
What is FRONT-LOADING VOCABULARY?
This word shows up twice in this rhyming Beers quote: "It's an interdependent relationship: as the skill to read improves, the _____ improves; as the _____ improves, skills improve."
What is WILL?
Reading instruction that connects texts across ELA, science, and history falls under this literacy approach that emphasizes discipline-specific thinking.
What is DISCIPLINARY LITERACY?
Finish this Franz Kafka quote: "A book must be the ___ for the frozen sea inside us."
What is AXE?
Since reading is often an invisible skill, a key to teaching and modeling is making our thinking ________.
What is VISIBLE?
In the sentence "The student was elated, or extremely happy, after receiving praise on her essay," this type of context clue is used.
What is a DEFINITION CLUE.
This large number gives the name of the research study that shows the gap between children who are read to every day from birth to Kindergarten and those who are rarely read to.
What is the MILLION Word Gap?
No more quiet classrooms! Research shows making time for this simple, everyday skill after reading improves comprehension and meaning-making.
This is the term for rhythmic and melodic aspects of speech, as in "he reads with good expression, intonation, including pitch, tone, volume, and emphasis on certain words."
What is PROSODY?
When students read with appropriate speed, accuracy, and expression, they’re demonstrating this skill—which frees up cognitive resources for comprehension.
What is FLUENCY?
It’s not just about dotting your i’s and crossing your t’s..."Despite debates about research methods, studies suggest that this foundational writing skill can positively impact reading ability.
What is SPELLING?
Literacy experts Bob Probst and Kylene Beers say DON'T do this famous acronym that many schools implement to get kids quiet and reading, but instead encourage independent reading with direction, support, and deliberate practice.
What is DEAR (or Drop Everything and Read)?
Beers advocates for more time in ALL classes reading and cites Malcolm Gladwell's book, Outliers, that suggests in order to achieve mastery of something, that person needs to practice for this many hours.