Constructing Meaning Through Kid-Friendly Comprehension Strategy Instruction (Maupin House)
"Constructing Meaningis an expertly and professionally written guidebook to honing one's teaching skills and bringing out the best in one's students." --"The BookWatch," The Midwest Book Review, October 2004Integrating writing with reading enhances comprehension (Brandenburg, 2002) because the two are reciprocal processes. Writing to learn engages students, extends thinking, deepens understanding, and energizes the meaning-making process...Writing to learn is an opportunity for students to recall, clarify, and question what they know about a subject and what they still wonder about with regard to that subject matter. Students also discover what they know about their content focus, their language, themselves, and their ability to communicate all of that to a variety of audiences. Without doubt, writing can optimize student learning of content subjects. Being able to express thinking in writing is a skill students take with them beyond the elementary social studies and science classrooms. --Writing to Learn across the Curriculum: Tools for Comprehension in Content Area Classes,  by Kathy J. Knipper and Timothy J. Duggan, The Reading Teacher, February 2006