Explores a five-year-old's writing about his liking for spiders to learn about the relationship between children's investigations of the world as information (content) and their use of language to do so. Discusses implications for teachers of children's ability to deal with concepts and vocabulary associated with content materials. (HTH)

Presents highlights of four "learning biographies" resulting from observations of children's writing in response to literature. The observations indicated that the connections children made to texts in reading and writing and how these are used to develop writing strategies and competence were related to their motivations and…

Interviews Gordon Wells of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Toronto, Canada. Wells extends the concept of children negotiating with people in their environment to create meaning to teachers taking control of their own learning and in so doing facilitating children's taking control of their own learning. (HTH)

Describes fourth graders' observations and hypotheses about the sun and moon and how the three-dimensional reality gradually replaced the inadequate two-dimensional models of textbooks. Discusses implications for instruction of this progression from concrete to abstract. (HTH)

Cautions that teaching manuals preclude a teacher's instinct for individualized teaching, and addresses the issue of what teachers need to know about language, culture, and learning for effective reading instruction. (HTH)