Argues that the singing-reading connective helps children learn to read and fosters a love for reading. Discusses integrating music with reading and notes various activities designed to extend the singing-reading experience, involving book concepts, sight vocabulary, reading comprehension, and fluency. (SR)

Describes the theoretical foundations, classroom context, and activities of a multicultural literature study (based on S. F. Staples'"Shabanu: Daughter of the Wind") in a ninth-grade English language arts classroom. Shares understanding and philosophy of multicultural literature and the merits for including it in classrooms as an integral part of…

Describes how most reading and writing assignments do not require the demonstration of sophisticated cognitive, social, or self-regulation skills. Describes an intervention study addressing this issue, in which students read and wrote complex prose, offered feedback to classmates, and monitored their learning progress. Focuses on how these new…

Examines how secondary students socialized into the complex and demanding discourse of English Literature. Considers what factors from the student's perspective, particularly those for whom English is their second language, distinguish those who more actively participate from those who do not. Addresses how one teacher sought to do this through an…

Considers how reading and writing experiences gained during the preschool period have enormous effect on children's first learning to read and write. Initiates a cross-cultural dimension to the subject matter from an empirical paradigm. Provides some evidence that emergent literacy is extensible to experiences regardless of linguistic forms. (SG)

Presents a part of a larger study attempting to retrieve the versions of the child implicit in the everyday life of a literature classroom. Focuses on a children's novel, "Magpie Island" (Thiele, 1974), and the classroom talk about that novel. Findings reveal that the version of the child implicit in the novel and that enacted in the classroom…

Endeavors to reassert the validity of a many-faceted agenda to which qualitative analysis of classroom talk remains central and to present a review of advances made in the gathering and interpretation of talk-evidence so that possible lines of further development can be indicated. (44 references) (Author/CK)

Describes the incorporation of math concepts into snacktime for prekindergarten students through a self-serve center with a snack menu. Children gain experience in counting, sequencing, and measuring continuous quantities; understand the concepts of sets, uniform units, more and less, equal quantities, fractions, zero, and patterns. (KB)

Discusses how teachers in six primary classrooms taught children to synthesize information (regarding reading, social studies, math, science, and social skills). Notes the central role that talk played in both the childrens' learning to synthesize and in the teachers' clarifying what they were researching and how they could best help the children.…

Shows how the party game "whisper down the lane"---where a message is whispered to the next person in line and repeated until it reaches the last person--can serve to tell a story. Uses the game as an acting exercise to train players in listening carefully, speaking clearly, concentrating, staying in the moment, and focusing on…

Describes the use of electronic mail as an integral part of reading education courses, in which students read journal articles related to course content, write their responses on e-mail, and distribute them to the entire class. Notes that e-mail drew students together to form a community of learners who shared and learned from one another. (SR)

Describes a range of responses by elementary and middle school students to educational attempts to provide culturally diverse perspectives, and examines possible reasons. Notes that drama is an effective way to introduce new cultures and ideas. Discusses dilemmas educators face in this endeavor, such as finding and selecting materials. (SR)

Describes collaborating with preschool children in the development of themed reading and writing activities in a travel agency play center in the classroom. Discuss collaboration rather than prescription, literacy in the travel agency, making plans with literacy-related materials, and developing a successful collaboration. (SR)

Explores a way to use gossip in the language classroom to provide language fluency practice. Shows how certain interpersonal exchanges can be encouraged by exploiting the natural proclivity for talking about people. Activities stress social aspects of learning and are intended to provide learners with opportunities to talk and listen. (Author/VWL)

Discusses a strategy for teaching students about how the Social Security Trust Fund works. Explains that a flow chart is presented to the students; four terms are defined (deficit, surplus, debt, and reserve); and a new graph is prepared to show the paths of these four variables. (CMK)