Intended to gain information about students who have difficulty organizing text when they write, a study probed students' ability to recognize and understand varying degrees of text organization while reading. Ninety ninth-grade students, divided equally into groups of good readers/good writers, good readers/poor writers, and poor readers/poor…

Developed as part of the America Reads Challenge, this booklet helps teachers and learning partners to identify "checkpoints"--what most children can do in reading and writing by developmental periods and what most children can read, by grade level. The checkpoints are grouped largely by three-year developmental periods because children…

Success for All is the most extensively researched of all comprehensive reform models for Title I elementary schools. It incorporates scientifically based principles of reading, cooperative learning, professional development, tutoring, and family support. Arkansas elementary schools using the Success for All reading program continued to make …

Reviews research on home literacy experiences of nonmainstream families, and challenges traditional views of what constitutes a rich literacy environment. Discusses efforts at home-school collaboration to help children grow in writing ability. (PCB)

Compared to 92 low-achieving and high-achieving students, 46 intermediate grade learning-disabled students wrote compositions, wrote summaries, and produced comprehension recalls that were less organized and contained fewer ideas. Interviews indicated that learning-disabled students possessed less knowledge about processes related to…

Examines the qualities and frequency of episodes of concurrent metalinguistic and ideational thinking reported verbally by second-language learners while they composed. Finds frequencies of thinking episodes is significantly related to learners' writing expertise in their mother tongue. Argues for integrating the notion of comprehensible output…

This case study examined the reading and writing progress of a first grade boy. Predictions that the boy would have learning difficulties were based on data from tests, expert assessments, reading and writing samples, and school instruction. Progress in first grade reading indicated that there was no relationship between test results and the…

This study of 40 junior high school students with learning disabilities and 20 control students found that significant intergroup differences in the quality of narrative compositions were not evident when students were allocated time for planning and were given "Create a Story" cues. (Author/JDD)

This article provides specific recommendations for teaching students with learning disabilities how to use a story grammar cueing system for improving writing. The article emphasizes the importance of individualizing instruction and teaching for generalization, and discusses the purpose of the system and methods of assessment. (JDD)

This study of 115 children with attention deficit disorder (ages 6-12) found that those with hyperactivity performed more poorly on a nonword reading task than did those without hyperactivity, that neither age nor gender interacted with subgroup class, and that poorer performance on written spelling/written language measures relative to reading…

In this article a method to improve sentence writing ability called sentence combining is explained. The potential effects of sentence combining are related and relevant research summarized. In addition, how to introduce sentence combining practice to a class, key instructional components including oral practice and peer assistance, sources of…

With support and guidance, graduate students can successfully pursue academic writing for publication. In graduate circles, academic writing is presumed to be a solitary activity for which students already are prepared. Yet, the reality is that students tend to find academic writing difficult and stressful, and they often look to university…

In graduate circles, academic writing is presumed to be a solitary activity for which students already are prepared. Yet, the reality is that students tend to find academic writing difficult and stressful, and they often look to university faculty members for guidance. Faculty members, in turn, may provide hands-on practice and other classroom…

The purpose of this study was to investigate how 23 fourth-grade students with different writing abilities translated their teacher's literacy instruction into an understanding of audience awareness when writing for Internet publication. As part of their classroom literacy instruction, students learned the textual features indicative of different…

Most research on year-round education has focused on the effectiveness of year-round versus traditional-calendar schools. This paper presents findings of a study that examined student differences within a year-round elementary school by attendance cohorts (tracks). Specifically, the study sought to determine track differences in writing…