Tens of thousands of students begin each new school year with the hope that they will finally find "the" teacher who will help them succeed as readers, writers, and learners. This book shows how teachers can provide the type of differentiated instruction that struggling readers need by drawing on students' individual and cultural backgrounds, as…

Investigates 11- and 12-year-old open-concept school students' reading and writing engagements as they conducted a research investigation related to World War II. Finds that students who viewed research as a process of transforming information were more likely to demonstrate a range of strategies that allowed them to traverse their topics from…

This study tested poor readers' facilities at detecting informational inconsistency in a text given at three levels of explicitness in prereading direction. Experimental materials presented a generalizability dilemma, which is discussed in detail. (Author/GK)

This highly regarded work brings together prominent authorities on vocabulary teaching and learning to provide a comprehensive yet concise guide to effective instruction. The book showcases practical ways to teach specific vocabulary words and word-learning strategies and create engaging, word-rich classrooms. Instructional activities and games…

A case study explored issues related to the self-selection of literature in a literature-based reading program. Lori, the student whose selection behaviors are highlighted, was one of 14 students who participated in a 5-month qualitative study in a sixth-grade classroom where the students were able to self-select their reading material. Lori, a…

This report discusses various methodological issues confronted in the Reading Literacy Study conducted under the auspices of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) and issues relating to analysis of the data. The study analyzed in the report involved fourth- and ninth-grade students (9-year-olds and…

A study was conducted in an effort to better understand what assumptions and strategies students bring with them to the task of dictionary use as well as what knowledge they take away from it. Data were collected in three middle-class school systems in the suburbs of a large, Midwestern city. Participants were 55 fourth-grade students ranking…

A summative evaluation design was developed as a framework for evaluating instructional materials in remedial reading. The paradigm includes the selection of (1) relevant variables for study and (2) the method of study. Two types of reading materials used in Chicago schools were studied--Cracking the Code (CTC) and the Mott Semi-Programmed Series…

Reports on an examination of intermediate level basal readers in eight series, concluding that they reflect reasonably well the interests of intermediate children. (DD)

During the 1979-80 school year, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) surveyed approximately 29,000 nine-year-old students regarding attitudes and achievement in reading and literature. Findings from this study were used for an analysis of the relationship between reading achievement and television viewing. The following…

Competent readers use strategies automatically; moreover, the use of strategies is a natural part of their reading process. Interested in the effects of the direct teaching of strategies to poor readers, a researcher decided to use a classroom action research approach. She studied reading strategies used by competent readers before, during, and…

A study examined whether the addition of electronic print to the audiovisual medium of television would significantly improve the information recall of children viewing a television program. Subjects in the control group viewed a videotaped version of a fictional narrative, while students in the experimental group watched the same tape, with the…

Analyzes the conversation of sixth grade children in literature response groups. Finds and describes two distinctive gendered styles of talk about literature, the predominate female mode of response being the "discourse of feeling," and the predominate male mode of response being the "discourse of action." Discusses pedagogy…

A study examined the role of metadiscourse characteristics and level of student anxiety as they affect learning from social studies textbooks. Metadiscourse is defined as an author's overt or non-overt presence in the discourse in order to direct rather than inform readers--the linguistic material given to readers so they will understand what is…