This article describes the development and implementation of Questioning the Author, an instructional intervention that focuses on having students grapple with and reflect on what an author is trying to say in order to build a representation from it. The implementation involved a social studies teacher, a reading/language arts teacher, and their 23 inner-city fourth-grade students in a small parochial school. Analyses of transcripts of videotaped lessons and classroom observations revealed that teacher talk decreased in quantity and increased in quality with more emphasis on questions focused on constructing and extending meaning and more skill in refining and using students' comments in discussion. Changes in the content of student talk were also documented. These included an increase in the number and complexity of studentinitiated questions and evidence of the development of student collaboration. Teachers' journal entries and students' responses in interviews provided insights about their views of the implementation. Current models of reading emphasize that successful reading is a constructive endeavor in which readers actively make sense of information in text by putting ideas together and integrating them with prior knowledge. Research with students and their interactions with texts has shown, however, that younger and less adept readers tend to take a less than active role in the reading process. Inexperienced readers are less likely to note inconsistencies in text content (Markman, 1979), to monitor what they understand from their reading (Cross & Paris, 1988; Garner & Taylor, 1982), and to employ strategies to keep their reading on track (Paris & Oka, 1986). Recently, much work has focused on developing instructional techniques to en

How can we supplement the limited time available for vocabulary instruction while motivating students to attend to the words they are learning? As a part of an academic word vocabulary intervention, we challenged sixth‐grade students to find their words in the world around them. This activity, In the Media, garnered responses from 51 of the 61 students involved in the intervention. Analysis of students' reading comprehension achievement showed that it was not just high‐achieving students who responded; rather the full range of achievement was represented. Analysis of pretest and posttest data revealed that students who found more words had the highest gains in the final assessment. Examples of students' encounters and where they found them are discussed. These examples suggest that students developed flexible knowledge of their words, as they were able to find them in uses beyond those taught and in related forms that had not been introduced.

This descriptive study explored how teachers implemented interactive practices during their vocabulary instruction after participating in a professional development initiative. The professional development was comprised of an initial workshop to provide an overview of vocabulary research and instruction, opportunities for teachers to receive targeted feedback on audiotaped classroom lessons, and an interim session where teachers discussed the process of implementation. Data were gathered through interviews and lesson transcripts. Teachers reported that they valued the feedback on classroom lessons and meetings with grade level colleagues. In addition, they reported positive changes in their instruction as a result of the professional development activities. Lesson transcripts showed that the instructional changes teachers reported corresponded to changes between pre- and post-intervention lesson transcripts.

In this article, we describe student‐centered routines that prepare students for success on ambitious text‐based writing assignments. Based on research showing the important role that peer collaboration and classroom discussion play in developing students’ thinking, these routines support students to ‘try out’ their ideas, learn from the perspectives of others, and clarify and revise their own positions in advance of writing. Importantly, these routines can be flexibly applied in both face‐to‐face and virtual classrooms to meet a range of teaching contingencies.