Clausen-Grace and Kelley believe that when it comes to independent reading, the question is not whether to use it, but rather how we can implement it to get the most benefit for our students. Here, they discuss the supporting research, defuse potential problems, identify characteristics of effective SSR programs, and outline their own action…

Presents four question-asking strategies that can help improve students' reading comprehension: ReQuest, Radio Reading, Directed Reading-Thinking Activity, and Question-Answer-Relationships. Also discusses taxonomies useful for classifying questions. (ARH)

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…

Consultant discusses useful guidelines for using oral reading wisely. (GB)

Evaluates the characteristics common to most reading programs and offers suggestions for keeping a program a learning rather than a testing situation. (HTH)

Argues that the directed reading activity (DRA) is a teaching strategy of limited use to students and discusses how teachers can transform the teaching strategy into a learning strategy. Discusses the generalization of the DRA strategy, emphasizes self-checking for learner control of strategies, and describes attributional consequences of teaching…

Presents the results of a minicourse to improve reading skills. (RB)

To meet the needs of students reading below their potentials, teachers must learn more about the reading process, become more diagnostic in determining pupils' strengths and weaknesses, and couple their knowledge of reading with an understanding of pupil deficiencies to plan a program to improve the child's ability to read. Diagnosis, though…

An innovative program to improve reading skills is described in this article. (JD)

Subskills and strategies necessary to improve reading skills are considered. The hypothesis/testing model, useful at the intermediate reading level, is presented. Two experiments, with retarded and normal children, respectively, indicate hypothesis/test model success. Task analysis on model components is used to generate the seven subskills. (BJG)

Children need to learn early that reading can give them new ideas and change old ideas. Pupils are all too often evaluated in terms of their ability to express what they know rather than what they think. Thoughtful reading can be done from the very beginning of reading instruction. Effective questioning practices will develop this ability. The…

This paper offers suggestions in the form of six guidelines on how the teacher can build toward reading maturity in the classroom. The first guideline urges the teacher to remember that reading necessitates a total complex thinking process, one which will prevent persisting at one level of instruction longer than is necessary. Secondly, students…

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…

A third-grade teacher's account of her struggle to determine the most appropriate methods for teaching reading skills includes grouping techniques, methods for creating interest in reading among the students, techniques for diagnosing reading levels, and a fifth dimensional approach to teaching beginning reading. (JN)

To determine the effects of repeated readings with cues on reading fluency and comprehension, a study was conducted on 30 third grade students reading at or above grade level, utilizing three equally difficult passages. Half the children were told to read for meaning, and the other half were cued to read for speed and accuracy. These cues were…