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…

Challenges the pervasive role that fiction has played in read-aloud programs and develops a rationale for including nonfiction. Includes a 20-item annotated bibliography of nonfiction read-alouds. (SR)

Discusses how rereading stories to young children enhances their emergent literacy skills. Explores the benefits of reading stories to children, the impact of rereading, and a method of systematic rereading in the Head Start classroom to improve children's language and recall skills and to increase their attention span. (KB)

Shares a classroom vignette illustrating ways in which the author shared her own feelings about books as a demonstration to her students, demonstrating why a reader values a certain text, how reading can help readers see the world with a fuller insight, and how literature can help readers come to terms with real-life situations. (SR)

Examines what happens when seventh-grade students share their personal reading with peers as "Reader of the Day," a way for them to define themselves publicly as they interact within the literacy community of the classroom. Discusses cultural value associated with "Reader of the Day," operations and task demands, and scripts for reader and…

Tested one intervention's ability to increase the frequency and quality of shared reading among low-income parents and their preschoolers. The program was based on an interactive reading method which facilitates children's receptive and expressive language. Children and parents residing in poor communities participated. Preintervention, few…