Describes how the author uses Franz Kafka's "A Little Fable" with his mainstream class of high school juniors. Considers how it is essential to show students how to stop reading when they don't understand something--to go back and reread it and begin making sense of it. Uses writing lists, student opinions, and classroom discussion. (SG)

Notes how the authors visited a sixth-grade classroom in an urban setting to teach students about jazz using children's literature. Describes how they played the music, talked about its basic structure and unique characteristics, read books aloud about the major musicians, and encouraged the students to experience the music for themselves. (SG)

Presents a literature-sharing activity which promotes children's participation in and enjoyment of reading. Describes how students write riddles about characters in books which have recently been read aloud to the class. (MG)

Lists 21 teacher tested ways of encouraging voluntary reading. Suggestions include role playing, teacher modeling, reading aloud, reading books from a series, critical reading, bringing books from home, and tape recording passages from books. (RS)

Examines the nature of third graders' responses to the literature that is read aloud to them. Documents both individual and class development in response patterns over time. Finds responding to literature fostered comprehension, discussion, and writing skills, and promoted emotional involvement with and appreciation of literature. (MG)

Describes several activities to maintain first graders' enthusiasm for reading, such as paired reading with third grade and kindergarten students, and other reading aloud activities outside the reading group. (MM)

Determines teacher and child behaviors during story reading and how they are related. Gathers data from 146 urban and suburban elementary school classrooms. Uses factor analysis to identify five categories of teacher behaviors and five categories of student behaviors. Finds that, across grade levels, children's involvement in prediscussion was…

Presents descriptions and addresses for 12 World Wide Web sites where additional information on the articles in this issue can be found. Topics include Black History Month, inclusion, special education, parent-teacher communication, and reading aloud to children. (TJQ)

Reflects on a teacher's first year back in the elementary classroom after having spent 12 years in university teaching. Notes that the teacher defines her role as a facilitator of student learning. Discusses struggling with reading aloud, partner reading, literature discussion groups, and talk about content area inquiries. Appends a transcript and…

Discusses creative and practical ways for promoting literacy at home with teenagers, including reading aloud, family reading, family writing, and school-home cooperation. (SR)

Describes the results of a survey of classroom read-aloud practices in the United States. Contrasts read-aloud practices with a "model" of what they might be. (PRA)

Investigates children's peer group discussions of a storybook, an information book, and an informational storybook. Finds older students collaborating more, drawing more on peer information, participating in longer discussions, and making more confirming and challenging responses than younger children. Finds that children stayed on topic longer…

Examines (from a Piagetian perspective) two preschoolers' understandings about letter associations during repeated alphabet book read alouds with their parents. Shows that neither child associated representative letters with the beginning sounds of names or other appropriate words. Postulates a psychogenetic theory of alphabet book reading. Offers…

Provides annotations of 11 books and conference papers from the ERIC database concerning reading aloud to others. Citations include information for preschool, elementary, intermediate, junior high school, secondary, and postsecondary students. (MG)

Identifies the extent to which 600 third and fourth grade classroom teachers practiced common recommendations for the use of children's literature. Finds that survey results and the composite classroom picture suggest that teachers who do emphasize the use of children's literature in their classrooms might be overlooking several relatively simple…