Describes the variety of intertextual links made by the children as they listened to each variation of the Rapunzel story. Traces the development of their schema for the tale. Identifies seven types of intertextual connections. Consolidates the findings into a grounded theory of young children's schema-building for traditional stories, through…

Describes a "Super Reader" project that gives students an opportunity to show off their ability as readers. Defines "Super Readers" as students who read aloud to small groups of their peers. Notes that the "Super Reader" project encourages students to practice good reading behaviors, which are important for holding…

Most people associate read-alouds with bright-eyed preschoolers and elementary school kids--not with struggling at-risk teens. But read-alouds are fun for students of all ages. And studies by education researchers such as Stephen Krashen, Jim Trelease, and Janet Allen have shown that reading to kids boosts their reading comprehension, increases…

Twenty young children (mean age = 32 months) with cerebral palsy (CP) recruited from early intervention programs received 30 minutes of massage or reading twice weekly for 12 weeks. The children receiving massage therapy showed fewer physical symptoms including reduced spasticity, less rigid muscle tone overall and in the arms, and improved fine…

Three African American mothers and their daughters participated in three, 30-minute reading sessions. During each session, daughters read narrative text for 15 minutes and expository text for the other 15 minutes. Categories of interaction emerged from those reading sessions. Results revealed nine mother interaction reading categories and seven…

As a part of the teacher licensure program at the graduate level at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC), the M.Ed. Licensure candidate is required to complete an action research project during a 3-semester-hour course that coincides with the 9-semester-hour student teaching experience. This course, Education 5900 Culminating…

A popular response among high school teachers and leaders facing students reading far below grade level, the authors claim, is to adopt back-to-basics packaged programs that focus on discrete skills with little attention to critical reading and writing. The authors express concern that reliance on such programs keeps older struggling readers from…

Each month throughout the school year, two second grade teachers at Lessenger Elementary highlight a different children's author. The interdisciplinary lessons that evolved the month they selected Margaret and H.A. Rey's Curious George books were the most successful. In this article, the author relates how art, story writing, reading aloud, and…

Out-of-school programs provide a context for enriching academic experiences. This study describes a 12-week after-school reading program, Project Expanding Horizons, which is based on the Schoolwide Enrichment Model-Reading (SEM-R) framework. SEM-R has three phases: exposure, supported independent reading, and choice. The exposure phase is…

This paper investigates the application of some of the most frequently used writing error correction techniques to see the extent to which this application takes learners' cognitive and affective characteristics into account. After showing how unlearned application of these styles could be discouraging and/or damaging to students, the paper…

This article describes the implementation of an extensive reading (ER) program with 43 first language (L1) and second language (L2) adult literacy students. Among them, 16% were nonnative speakers of English. The main principles considered in the design of the program were (a) purpose of reading, (b) reading tactics, (c) material used, and (d) …

The 15 adapted fairy tales presented in this book were prepared for use in practicing oral reading by a parent and a child, a teacher and a child, or two children, one of whom reads slightly better than the other. The stories in the book are arranged in dialogue format for two readers. The high interest/low readability stories in the book are…

Noting that much research has been done on many aspects of parents' involvement in their children's education, this literature review focuses on the ways parents develop their children's reading skills. Topics discussed in the literature review are existing literature reviews (no comprehensive reviews of research have been conducted since 1986),…

Stories are one means of communication between people of all ages. The telling of stories or listening to them is a part of a tradition as old as human experience. This guide gives practical advice, curriculum suggestions, and story examples for teachers interested in using storytelling with young children. The following are the sections: (1)…

Telling and listening to stories is an ancient tradition that can benefit foreign language learners of all ages, languages, and levels of proficiency. Stories contain linguistic, paralinguistic, discourse, and cultural features that provide the comprehensible input and output that students need to develop their conversational skills. Instructors…