It has been more than twenty years since the National Reading Panel Report (2000) provided recommendations for the teaching of reading based on a meta-analysis of suitable research. The report was commissioned at the end of the 1990s, just as the "whole language" reading movement that advocated for analytic phonics instruction and having…

"Setting the Foundation: A Report on Elementary Grades Reading in Tennessee" (ED572952) provides insight into the challenges associated with early grades reading in Tennessee, along with a set of recommendations for building more readers across the state. This appendix provides detailed information about reading programs in Tennessee…

This convergent parallel mixed method sought to determine if the reading program increased third-grade student achievement. The research questions of the study examined the reading achievement scores of third-grade students and the effectiveness of McGraw-Hill Reading Wonders™. Significant differences were observed when a paired sample t test…

Children's literature serves as mirrors and windows for the students we teach today. Through literature, children should be able to see their own reflections as well as the world around them. Yet despite their long history in the United States, Asian Americans have not always been represented in children's literature. This study analyzed the…

Few topics in education have sparked as much interest and debate as the teaching of reading. Throughout the past century, instructional approaches have come and gone but one thing has remained constant: the teacher. Behind every effective classroom lies a teacher. It is ultimately the teacher's decisions that drive daily instruction in the…

Male underachievement in language arts is a continuing problem. At the participating school for this study, girls in Grades 3-6 have continued to outscore boys by 8% to 24% in language arts. As a result, school administrators identified male students as a population that need to demonstrate growth in this subject to meet state expectations. This…

This study of advanced readers in Reading First (RF) classrooms was part of a larger evaluation of one state's RF implementation. The study's purposes were to (a) assess the longitudinal growth of advanced primary readers as compared with their non-advanced-reading peers over a 3-year timeframe and (b) determine the degree to which RF classrooms…

This content analysis study examined 99 basal reading narratives from three publishers: Harcourt, SRA-McGraw Hill, and Scott Foresman. The stories were classified according to the ethnicity of the major characters. The observed frequencies were compared to expected frequencies to indicate over representation, adequate representation or under…

Teachers at a Title I elementary school in South Carolina implemented the scripted Reading Mastery© program (RMP) to improve students' comprehension. Comprehension scores did not increase, despite teachers receiving RMP professional development (PD) prior to implementing the program. Administrators were unaware if the teachers were adequately…

The process of teaching the child to read has gone through many stages of progress. Word, sentence, and phonic methods may each contribute to the process, and that undue emphasis on any one of these methods demands too great a sacrifice in quality and interest. The "Merrill Primer" is built on the familiar rhymes of Mother Goose and…

The chief difficulties in teaching a child to read are focused in the Primer (ED622318) and the First Reader. If the teaching in the first year is wisely done, the later work in reading should go forward smoothly and steadily. Every step in this fundamental work must be carefully planned and developed. The First Reader, therefore, should be a…

There is no more direct way to the interest of children in the second school year than through the story. All thought of drudgery vanishes and the lesson is a real source of delight when the reading book furnishes one good story after another. This "Second Reader," therefore, is a book of stories -- stories in prose and verse. Fairy…

An appreciation of the best there is in literature is one of the chief aims of the reading lessons. It is therefore essential that the material used in every grade should have intrinsic value. It must be good literature and it must also be worth while for its own sake, from the child's point of view. With this aim in view, the selections in this…