This Teaching Tips describes a yearlong process of facilitating meaningful discussion groups about literature with first-grade students in an urban Title I school. At the beginning of the year, the teacher provided explicit instruction in speaking and listening skills to support students with the social skills needed for thoughtful discussion. She…

After briefly reviewing how reading is conceptualised in the "Progress in International Reading Literacy Study" and the English National Curriculum, this article examines two unofficial reading activities in a class of 10-11-year-olds' to see how far these activities match up with the official definitions of reading, or whether they…

The essay is the most intimate of reading experiences, in which the reader is invited to eavesdrop as the writer works through a thought or excavates a memory. The writer can be explicit, in the first person, or just implicit, as the person behind the words, but he or she is absolutely, powerfully present. It's as if, for those few thousand words,…

Suggests three levels of reading. The first is exemplified by E. D. Hirsch's prescriptive "cultural literacy." The second is interpretive, typified by the "strong reader." The third is critical and is best suited to dealing with the complexities of poetry. (ARH)

Develops a rationale for using action books with preschool children of three-six years. Offers guidelines for selection of books, and gives an annotated book list of humorous action books that teachers and parents can use with young children. (BB)

Maintains that reading humorous storybooks to toddlers can support their development and learning. A bibliography of humorous children's books is included. (BB)

Discusses the failure of Joe Bob Briggs' parody of "We Are the World" in terms of the development of the communal sense that creates a set of group norms, which in turn create "phantom constraints" of which the parody's author may not be aware.(NKA)