Learning to read marks a critical transition in a child's educational trajectory that has long term consequences. This dissertation analyzes how California's current policies in beginning reading instruction impact two critical conditions for creating opportunity--access to qualified teachers and rigorous academic curriculum--by examining the…

Today, effective and creative teacher designed instruction is being replaced by scripted reading programs. These programs are changing the role of the teacher in the classroom from professionals to mere transmitters of knowledge. The idea that the role of the teacher had changed became evident while conducting a study with elementary school…

In this article, I critique a component of the highly structured Open Court Reading curriculum designed to teach elementary children "inquiry and higher-order thinking" skills. The intended outcome of this component is, I argue, the production of critically literate and informed consumers of information. However, both the critical…

This article first sets the context by recalling a study conducted by Alamillo (2004) at a California elementary school. That study examined culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy in the classroom through the use of Chicano children's literature. Both the text and the illustrations found in recent publications and the role they played…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of task based writing instruction (TBwI) on English language acquisition and differentiated instruction for minority language students during the Independent Work Time instructional component of the Open Court Reading program. One teacher and 10 third grade students (8-9 years old)…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of task-based writing instruction, a communicative language-teaching method, on second language acquisition and differentiation of instruction for English language learners during the independent work time instructional component of the Open Court Reading program. Through student-teacher…

In an effort to reverse the reading crisis purported to plague public education, schools and districts are mandating prescriptive reading programs and teacher-centered instructional practices in hopes of improving the academic achievement of minority students, including English learners (ELs). The wide-spread implementation of these programs in…

Thousands of students in California learn English as a second language in schools that utilize exclusively monolingual--English Only--literacy programs. With such programs students do not have the opportunity to use the knowledge of their first language in order to acquire and master their second language. The project of cooperative bi-literacy…

The definitions in this document are organized in four sections in order to facilitate their use with the Program Planning Manual and Needs Assessment Tables. "Teacher/Student Organization" defines the classroom teacher, reading teacher, team of teachers, aide (working for salary), volunteer aide, cross-age teaching, peer tutoring,…

A discussion of the computer-assisted instruction program in initial reading at Stanford University. The program consists of eight parts or strands that help the students learn the alphabet, a sight-word vocabulary of 700 words, spelling patterns within words, phonetic structures and comprehension of semantic categories and sentences. (Author)

This article reports that educators and experts across the country who work with English-language learners (ELLs) are moving toward a consensus that the federal Reading First program needs to be refined to become more effective for children acquiring English. Administrators in several big-city districts with large numbers of such students are…

An ongoing, interdisciplinary reading program for students in grades 7-10 in Perris Union High School District (California) is described. Initiated in 1979 as a result of low reading scores, the program divides all incoming seventh grade students into homogeneous groups. In the first 6 weeks of school these new groups meet once a day for 50…

THIS REPORT ON THE PROGRESS OF THE IBM 1800/1500 CAI SYSTEM, AN AUTOMATED READING AND ARITHMETIC CURRICULUM FOR CULTURALLY DEPRIVED CHILDREN IN THE PRIMARY GRADES, DISCUSSES THE PROBLEMS INVOLVED IN GETTING THE SYSTEM INTO OPERATION IN THE BRENTWOOD SCHOOL IN STANFORD, CALIF. THE OPERATIONAL FEATURES OF THIS IBM SYSTEM AND THE METHODS BY WHICH THE…

The Beverly Public Schools Comprehensive Remedial Reading Program, funded under Title I of the Elementary Secondary Education Act, was evaluated in the Spring of 1971. The program was comprised of Reading Laboratories using materials produced by Educational Development Laboratories, Inc. in three elementary schools, two junior high schools, and a…