Most of today's reading programs rest on faulty ideas about reading comprehension. The author argues that comprehension is not a general skill; it relies on having relevant vocabulary and knowledge. He explains the need for a fact-filled, knowledge-building curriculum. He suggests that states should adopt a common core curriculum that builds…

School systems across the country continuously seek to find ways to increase academic achievement at all grades. Possessing the ability to read is one of the keys to academic success; not being able to presents many challenges. Union County Public Schools and the state of North Carolina expect students leaving their kindergarten year to be able to…

In order to systemically improve student achievement in elementary literacy, a large urban school district partnered with a local university to develop a model for high-quality professional development that hopefully would result in long-term changes in teachers' literacy instructional/practices. Schools were selected based on their Adequate…

Experts from the White House to the Ivory Tower agree--and real teachers of real children concur--that reading is the most important skill young students must acquire. Whether they learn through whole language or phonics, children must leave the elementary grades competent in the art of decoding written text in their native language. Even…

In developed countries like the United States and Britain, the continuing challenge for educators is to sort through the choices of an all-you-can-eat school system and teach the basic skills. Despite so-called universal education, an alarming number of people still fail to reach even basic levels of literacy. The "literacy hour" was…

To calculate the economic benefits of schooling and compensatory education, a statistical model estimated the effects of schooling and literacy on earnings and employment. The literacy measure was obtained for a probable sample of the U.S. population in 1972, from the National Reading Survey. The measure was administered with a background…

The purpose of this guide is to acquaint teachers with Avon's Nongraded Program and to make available to them a comprehensive set of guidelines relative to the concept of nongradedness and its subsequent implementation. The contents include a listing of the national sequence of change in elementary school organization, a discussion of the local…