The teaching activities presented in this pamphlet focus on spelling. The pamphlet begins with a discussion of the relationship between spelling and writing. Following that, it describes a language experience approach and its implications, the benefits of daily writing, and the kind of writing that allows a successful spelling program to operate.…

Using student dictated stories to create class books is an exciting way to teach young children about books and writing. Children can thus use their own material as they learn to read, the books provide a class library, and writing through dictation allows young children to learn about reading and writing before they can read or write--even with…

The extent and impact of adolescent illiteracy, brief descriptions of several successful programs designed to combat adolescent illiteracy, and a more detailed description of one of those programs are included in this collection of articles. The first article argues that while experts may disagree about the numbers of illiterate adolescents and…

To support young children in bringing all of their resources to bear on constructing meaning from print, teachers must be aware of how children learn, must make use of a variety of learning materials, and must carefully prepare the contextual setting in which children move into reading. Teachers should focus on planning a classroom reading…

Articles in these two issues of the newsletter on teaching adult literacy in English as a Second Language (ESL) address the following topics: (1) using time cards and paychecks in the classroom; (2) phonics and reading instruction; (3) dyslexia and ESL adult literacy; (4) a conference session on directions in adult literacy research; (5) literacy…

Noting that the ways children encounter and use print in the classroom can be examined as surface and organizing content of curriculum, this article provides descriptions of innovative uses of print in the kindergarten and elementary school classroom. Curriculum "surface content" includes activities, use of classroom space, display, and…

The 10 articles (and introduction by Stephen Reuys) in this journal discuss issues of adult literacy/adult basic education from a variety of perspectives. Titles and authors are as follows: "The Boston Adult Literacy Initiative: Moving beyond Initiative" (Silja Kallenbach); "Project FOCUS: Writing through Pictures" (Beatriz M. Strohmeyer); "The…

This journal issue contains six articles related to language-centered reading instruction, integrated language arts, and reading comprehension. The first article discusses the language experience approach (LEA) to developing comprehension skills in adult beginning readers. The second article describes examples of uses of LEA in such content areas…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 34 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) elementary school reading comprehension instruction; (2) a language experience approach to remedial reading instruction with junior high school students, (3)…

This document describes a literacy project in rural Ecuador using a modified version of Sylvia Ashton Warner's language experience approach. This method allows learners to approach written culture on their own terms by learning words important to their life, then transferring these works to sentences and stories. The approach reduces the rural…