Complex Text Decoded

In Complex Text Decoded, educational consultant and former master teacher Kathy T. Glass presents strategies, activities, and assessments that target students’ ability to comprehend complex text—whether presented as traditional written text or in multimedia formats—in grades 5–10. You’ll learn * The essential elements of unit design and models for lesson planning. * Specific, step-by-step instruction for teaching vocabulary. * Effective questioning techniques. * Strategies and activities explicitly designed for teaching complex text. * How to measure text complexity and select appropriate texts that are aligned with curricular goals. It’s important to provide opportunities for students to read a wide variety of texts for different purposes and along a spectrum of difficulty and length. To meet the goal of comprehensively grasping complex text, students must have concrete tools to help them become highly skilled readers. Complex Text Decoded enables teachers to provide precisely that.

In our media-saturated environment, how can we teach students to distinguish true statements from those that are false, misleading, or manipulative? How can we help them develop the skills needed to identify biases and stereotypes, determine credibility of sources, and analyze their own thinking and its effect on their perceptions? In Teaching Students to Decode the World, authors Chris Sperry and Cyndy Scheibe tackle these questions as they introduce readers to constructivist media decoding (CMD), a specific way to lead students through a question-based analysis of media materials—including print and digital documents, videos and films, social media posts, advertisements, and other formats—with an emphasis on critical thinking and collaboration. Drawing from their decades of experience as teachers, consultants, and media literacy advocates, the authors explain how to * Develop and facilitate CMD activities in the classroom and in virtual teaching environments; * Implement CMD across the curriculum, at all grade levels; * Connect CMD with educational approaches such as project-based learning, social-emotional learning, and antiracist education; * Incorporate CMD into assessments; and * Promote CMD as a districtwide initiative. This comprehensive guide explains the theoretical foundations for CMD and offers dozens of real-life examples of its implementation and its powerful impact on students and teachers. Equipped with CMD skills, students will be better able to navigate a complex media landscape, participate in a democratic society, and become productive citizens of the world.

It’s the teaching around the standards that counts! What makes Sharon Taberski’s Common Core Companion “that version of the standards you wish you had?” It’s the way Sharon translates each and every standard for reading, writing, speaking and listening, language, and foundational skills into the day-to-day “what you do.” It’s all here: The standards for literature and informational texts put side by side for easier planning More than a dozen teaching ideas for each standard Recommendations on how to cultivate critical habits of mind A glossary of academic language for each standard An online bank of graphic organizers, reproducibles, charts, and more

Recognizing the characteristics of children with learning disabilities and deciding how to help them is a problem faced by schools all over the world. Although some disorders are fairly easily recognizable (e.g., mental retardation) or very specific to single components of performance and quite rare (e.g., developmental dyscalculia), schools must consider much larger populations of children with learning difficulties who cannot always be readily classified. These children present high-level learning difficulties that affect their performance on a variety of school tasks, but the underlying problem is often their difficulty in understanding written text. In many instances, despite good intellectual abilities and a superficial ability to cope with written texts and to use language appropriately, some children do not seem to grasp the most important elements, or cannot find the pieces of information they are looking for. Sometimes these difficulties are not immediately detected by the teacher in the early school years. They may be hidden because the most obvious early indicators of reading progress in the teacher's eyes do not involve comprehension of written texts or because the first texts a child encounters are quite simple and reflect only the difficulty level of the oral messages (sentences, short stories, etc.) with which the child is already familiar. However, as years go by and texts get more complex, comprehension difficulties will become increasingly apparent and increasingly detrimental to effective school learning. In turn, studying, assimilating new information, and many other situations requiring text comprehension -- from problem solving to reasoning with linguistic contents -- could be affected. Problems with decoding, dyslexia, and language disorders have attracted more interest from researchers than have specific comprehension problems and have occupied more room in specialized journals. Normal reading comprehension has also been a favorite with researchers. However, scarce interest has been paid to subjects who have comprehension difficulties. This book is an attempt to remedy this situation. In so doing, this volume answers the following questions: * Does a reading comprehension problem exist in schools? * How important and widespread is the problem? * Is the problem specific? * How can a reading comprehension difficulty be defined and identified? * Does the "syndrome" have a single pattern or can different subtypes be identified? * What are the main characteristics associated with a reading comprehension difficulty? * When can other well-identified problems add to our understanding of reading comprehension difficulties? * Which educational strategies are effective in preventing and treating reading comprehension difficulties? * What supplementary information can we get from an international perspective?

Text readability is at the core of successful reading instruction and language learning. To counteract the challenges of complex reading content, text leveling is a vital necessity for readers with limited language access. A transdisciplinary analysis of reading development and linguistic interrelations builds the theoretical foundation of the base-1 method. This method focuses solely on structural and functional text elements on the word, sentence and cohesion level. But this book also discusses the significance of other prevalent readability factors, such as the reader ́s language knowledge or socio-cultural background. The base-1 method is designed to level early reading texts in German and other alphabetic languages. Experimental tests with a German immersion population has led to a preliminary calibration to demonstrate the validity of this approach. Bernd Nuss ist erfahrener Immersionslehrer in verschiedenen Programmen, die sich über Nord-, Zentral- und Südamerika erstrecken. An der E. E. Waddell Language Academy wirkt er schulintern als Immersion Facilitator, kooperiert mit Bildungsorganisationen und betreut die Praktika von Gaststudierenden an der Schule. Bernd Nuss has worked as an educator and facilitator in English and German language immersion programs all over the Americas and in Europe. In this capacity, he has also been collaborating as a researcher with universities and other educational institutions in Europe, Asia, and the USA.

Contains one hundred sixty lessons for teachers to use when teaching language arts to grades 1-3. Includes reproducibles.

This impressive volume contains the edited proceedings of a symposium held in honor of Isabelle Y. Liberman, whose teaching and writings laid the foundation for contemporary views of reading disability. Her work has influenced ways of thinking about the nature of the problem and ways of working with children and adults who experience unusual difficulty in learning to read. The symposium covered four themes that were central to Dr. Liberman's research on reading acquisition and disability: the development of phonological awareness, the relationship between phonological awareness and success in learning to read and write, the investigation of other phonological processes associated with reading and writing performance, and the implications of current research on these matters for reading instruction. The text includes a paper on each topic, followed by commentaries which introduce additional research findings and theoretical considerations -- all by leading researchers in the field.

Description: This Volume on Indian Christianity Represents the Unique Character of Christian Belief Systems and its Practice in the Indian Context, Reflected in the Divergent Cultural and Ethnic Expressions that have been Theologically Justified by Various Individuals and Groups Representing Diverse Christian Denominations. The Uniqueness of Christian Faith and Practice Lies in its Claim that the Religion is Based Upon Love. In a Comparative Study of Religions, it is Never Possible to Make such Claim in Relation to other Religions. What is Pointed out here is that Christianity, in Genesis and Practice, Makes Love its Central Reality. The Shift that Occurred with the Message of Jesus Vis-a-Vis the Message of the Old Testament is Best Described in Terms of the Shift from God of Justice to God of Love as Preached by Jesus. Another Distinguishing Mark of Christian Faith and Practice is the Emphasis on Jesus of Nazareth as a Historical Person. Besides, Depending on the References to Non-Biblical Texts to Authenticate the Historicity of Jesus, Christians in the Later Part of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century have Undertaken Critical Inquiry into the Reliability of the Biblical Texts, Composition of the Books, etc. which gave Rise to a Distinct Method of Hermeneutics/Exegesis. Most Papers in this Volume have Either Commitment to Historicity of Jesus or Rely Upon Exegetical/Hermeneutical Method While Establishing the Truth. The Papers in this Volume Deal with Four Different Themes : the Historical, the Conceptual, the Theological and the Social. As a Historical Contribution, the Papers Reflect on Early Christianity Both World Wide and in India and Spread of Christianity in Various Parts of the Country. As a Conceptual Contribution, the Papers Reflect on the Unique Character of Indian Christianity which has its Genesis in Indian Culture and has Retained Many of its Elements While at the Same Time Asserting its Universal Character. At the Theological Level, the Papers Deal with Theological Aspects of Indian Christianity Particularly in the Context of Christianity s Interaction with other Faiths. And Finally, at the Social Level, the Contributors Reflect on Social Contribution of Christianity in Terms of Science, Art, Music and Culture. All the Papers Both Directly and Indirectly, Implicitly or Overtly, Contribute to Show the Essence of Indian Christianity, Both as Communion and as a Social Reality. This Book on Indian Christianity is Likely to be of Interest Both to Researchers as Well as the General Public, some of whom have Varied Misconceptions about the Two Millennia of Expression of Faith in India.