The increase in language minority students in U.S. schools has drawn attention to instructional models designed to assist these students. It is critical that literacy educators understand the potential of these models for literacy achievement. This study was designed to examine reading achievement of elementary English language learners in…

Project Unity was a project funded by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act Title VII in its third and final year of operation in 1993-94. The project provided instruction to teachers of students with limited English proficiency in both special and general education classes in New York City public schools. Teachers participated in an initial…

This paper discusses the need to rethink preservice and inservice training programs for general and special educators who teach culturally diverse students with learning disabilities. An overview identifies problems associated with traditional preservice and inservice training programs, such as Eurocentric teacher education programs and low…

This report documents the evaluation of Project Unity, a New York City short-term teacher inservice training program designed to improve teacher competence in providing instruction to children of limited English proficiency (LEP). The Project served a total of 119 teachers of LEP students in both special and general education classes in 18…

This paper argues that literature-centered reading programs, based on the perspective that reading is the process of bringing meaning to print, are in the best interest of the language minority students in the nation's elementary schools. After a review of basal reading systems and language-centered reading programs, the paper describes the…