In this response, we make the case for the power and promise of scaffolded reading instruction for teaching civic literacy--civic content knowledge and skills needed to both comprehend and take a stand on civic issues at a local, national, or global level. We argue the following: (a) Now, more than ever, students need to develop the skills and…

Generally, reading is perceived as consisting of identifying words and increasing comprehension skills, but there are a plethora of additional symbols which students need to read and comprehend meaningfully. This paper first discusses reading across the curriculum, emphasizing abstract words, and then considers symbols peculiar to diverse academic…

Comments on the nature of taxonomies in education generally and in reading specifically. Examines alternatives to taxonomies as they are traditionally used in reading instruction, and proposes a number of comprehension strategies to use in conjunction with the Thomas Barrett Taxonomy of Reading. (FL)

Encourages use of the newspaper to remediate skills in older nonreaders. Proposes teaching essential reading skills concomitant with basic voting procedures so that nonreading adults will be able to function in society and describes seven activities requiring use of critical, literal and inferential skills. (JK)

Argues that making inferences is an integral part of reading comprehension. Presents classroom strategies based on current research that encourage inference skill development. (FL)

Expands the usual notion of critical reading from just the judgments readers make about the text to include judgments they make about their "reading" of the text. Describes activities to develop "executive" metacomprehension skills. (HTH)

Reviews the literature relevant to investigating the effects of textual phrasing on the efforts of children to comprehend and addresses the issue of whether the use of a word processor can have an impact on helping children improve comprehension. (FL)

People who live in a democracy should be well informed of local, state, national, and international happenings. Students should become curious about news items and relate current happenings to the personal self. They must possess skills in word recognition and in diverse kinds of comprehension since reading is an important way to glean current…

"Six Steps of Argument Analysis" is a model for a critical thinking class which illustrates where and how the teacher can break off from the well-ordered sequence of critical thinking skills in order to provide occasions for each student to realize where he or she is making a judgment. Through use of this model the teacher can encourage…

Reading comprehension means extracting the required information from a written text as efficiently as possible. This paper describes how English as a Second Language (ESL) students can become efficient readers of English, focusing on language proficiency, ESL instructions in a foreign language, and the cognitive academic language learning approach…

Outlines how contemporary reading theorists conceptualize reading fluency, discussing why it is a good indicator of reading process efficiency. Suggests ways to foster development of reading fluency. Children must acquire the automatic word and phrase processing that enables fluent reading and lets them allocate cognitive capacity to…

Describes a lesson planning framework that content-based instruction teachers can adapt to their instructional materials, student populations, and classroom settings. Applying the framework to an authentic reading passage, the sample lesson illustrates how teachers can develop activities that supplement the content, increase student access to and…

The ways in which students in grades five and six solve problems is the focus of this paper, which provides background for the staff of the Skills Essential to Learning Television Project, (a multi-level series of video and print resources for classroom use). It considers the problem-solving process categories of understanding, transformation, and…

Proposes use of computer simulations to help students build reading comprehension skills, and describes an existing simulation which requires readers to interact with text to accomplish some purpose. Differences between teaching reading skills with simulations and the way they are traditionally taught, and future potential of reading simulations…

The article defends the teaching of philosophy at elementary and secondary levels and examines some existing precollege philosophy curricula; special attention is given to the American Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children and a Canadian effort to establish moral education in the schools. (SB)