This compilation explains the Strategic Reading Project (SRP), a long-term staff development project for schools committed to improving their students' ability to read strategically. Noting that the SRP has been designed for elementary schools, the compilation points out that the project is adaptable to high schools. The Project Team Notebook in…

Argues that vocabulary is best taught by helping students experience the meaning of words. Offers research background and four teaching methods to use with intermediate grade students. (FL)

Discusses List-Group-Preview, an activity that combines eliciting prior knowledge with guiding students through a new textbook chapter. (FL)

Describes a teaching strategy in which teachers ask questions that help students activate their existing knowledge about a text to be read in order to facilitate the learning of new concepts. (FL)

Discusses the effect of previous knowledge on reading comprehension. Suggests reading instruction methods that evoke the readers' experiences, or schemata, relevant to the material. (HTH)

A study with 18 deaf high school students found that skills that actually contribute to reading proficiency included use of prior text information, prior knowledge, reading speed and consistency, use of active memory for function words and inflections, and correct processing of relative clauses and the passive voice. Instructional implications are…

When using outside sources in their writing, students must learn to balance efficiency with effectiveness. In other words, they must express themselves clearly and quickly, providing readers with enough explicit information to create a causal chain based on reasonable inferences. Yet they must guard against being overly explicit, boring their…

Describes a three-step process to help teachers honor what children bring to each reading situation and to model for children the importance of accessing appropriate knowledge sources before reading. (FL)

Describes 10 categories of inferences and proposes a three-step procedure for teaching students to make inferences while reading. (HOD)

This book targets teachers in higher education as well as in adult education, illustrating how to work toward becoming more authentic in teaching using case studies, examples, stories, and exercises. Chapter 1 explores current understanding of the basic self and psychological preferences. Chapter 2 discusses the powerful influence of past…

Argues that children develop knowledge in layers, increasing those layers each time the topic is covered. Reviews three sets of materials that provide a background of experience, vocabulary, and text structure for use in science instruction. (FL)

Discusses the use of literature in the whole-language approach. Examples show the integration of a second grader's experiences with the curriculum; integrating the language arts in the middle school via study of the author as well as the book; and the integration of literature into the study of history. Titles to use in each area are suggested.…

This report describes the role of analogies in science instruction and presents research on a model for teaching with analogies. This model is being developed from research studies of textbooks and exemplary teachers; it provides guidelines for the strategic use of analogies during science instruction to explain fundamentally important concepts in…

Planned, individualized vocabulary instruction is an essential ingredient of developmental reading classes, and deserves special attention, since expanding word knowledge is the one area related to reading comprehension in which student progress can be directly observed and measured by the learner in daily or weekly increments. The two factors…

Discusses components of an educational plan which supports acquisition of computer programing skills by elementary school children, including antecedent knowledge required (sequencing, similarity, character recognition, part/whole relationships, conditional forms, repetition, and incrementation); initial programing concepts; and outcomes valuable…