Guided reading is used in classrooms across the country and, while it is fairly new, it is anything but revolutionary. In this article, and in honor of the 50th volume of "Reading Horizons," the authors take a look back at the 50-year history of this practice, provide a definition of guided reading, analyze what caused the practice to…

This article reports on a teacher's experiment with Reader's Theatre (RT), an interactive play reading activity with elements of reading aloud, drama and theatre, for her 20 unmotivated learners of literature in a premier school in Malaysia. Using RT, the students staged Angela Wright's "Potato People". The procedures and design of the…

Summer Training and Education Program (STEP) is a summer employment, academic remediation, and life skills program intended to lower school dropout rates by reducing summer learning loss and preventing teen parenthood. The program is integrated into the federal summer jobs program and is offered during six-to-eight-week sessions in two consecutive…

The Accelerated Reader/Reading Renaissance program (now called Accelerated Reader Best Classroom Practices) is a guided reading intervention in which teachers direct student reading of text. It involves two components. Reading Renaissance, the first component, is a set of recommended principles on guided reading (or teachers' direction of…

The purpose of this study was to investigate how reciprocal teaching affected vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension in four at-risk students in a fourth grade inclusion classroom. A single subject research study method was used to measure the baseline of each student. Subsequently, students were assessed daily after receiving two…

The study found that instructing 13 learning-disabled junior high students in the necessary prior knowledge (information and vocabulary concepts) led to superior reading comprehension performance. Textually explicit text structure also improved reading comprehension. (DB)

From 1976 through 1979, Shelby County, Tennessee, schools participated in a Right to Read Special Emphasis project. An experimental and a control school were used, in which more than 50% of the pupils read one or more grades below level. The project included the use of reading specialists, a structured reading system (DISTAR), a summer reading…

Reports on a teacher survey designed to (1) determine the extent to which reading instruction is being offered beyond the reading classroom and (2) explain why some programs fail and some succeed. Suggests four steps to follow to develop a successful program. (NH)

The first year of California State University's program to improve university students' critical reading of introductory texts had two objectives: to develop professors' available repertoire of strategies for guiding students' independent learning from texts and to develop students' facility in learning from texts with adjunct guide materials…

Four inquiries were conducted to provide some initial feedback on the operation of the Directed Activities Related to Text Project. Three were concerned with aspects of process and examined such problems as the ways in which the actual course of a text-based lesson reflects the objectives of the project, and how such a lesson can be shown to…

Reviews research on elementary school teachers' feedback to students' miscues in basal and content area reading. Describes the sustained feedback paradigm that developed from the Direct Instruction Programs. (Author/HOD)

The Bryan Independent School District (Texas) has implemented a primary grade parent involvement program based on a home-partnership model and a contract of cooperation between the parents and schools. By signing the contract, the parents agree to (1) listen to their child read 15 minutes three days a week; (2) read a story a day to their child;…

In fall 1981, three Teacher Corps interns worked with high school students to improve their abilities in content area reading. The interns worked directly with content area teachers and their students on a tutorial basis, each intern assuming responsibility for an identified content area--social studies, mathematics, and English. The interns made…

Describes one teacher's reading aloud a Paula Danziger novel to motivate a group of adolescents to think and respond critically to read-aloud fiction. Includes examples of discussion strategies used to help students judge word play, recognize different points of view, and evaluate the author's ability to relate to her audience. (ARH)