Decision-making is essential for the work of teaching. Preservice teachers must learn to leverage knowledge about young readers' strengths, needs, and interests in order to plan and teach guided reading lessons skillfully. However, limited research examines preservice teachers' decision-making based on what they know about individual children. In…

This study compares the English reading comprehension and ethical awareness of 7th grade students, when using either a directed reading-thinking activity (DR-TA), or a more traditional approach, involving tales of virtue based on His Majesty the King's teaching concepts. A randomized control group pretest-posttest design was used for the study,…

Figurative Language can be a more effective way for authors to say what they mean, but young readers need help from teachers to ensure their understanding of these figures of speech. (Author)

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

Describes how teachers can incorporate the use of comprehension monitoring activities into the guided reading phase of basal reading instruction. (FL)

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…

Thirty-six learning disabled children (9-12 years old) participated in a modified Directed Reading Activity, a modified Concept Analysis Activity, and a Worksheet Activity (control). Results indicate that evaluative reading comprehension was more affected by both the modified Concept Analysis Activity and the modified Directed Reading Activity…

Describes a Silent Directed Thinking Activity that was based on an abridged version of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado" and used with eighth-grade remedial classes. (HOD)

Suggests several ways to stimulate students to comprehend literature with both feelings and facts. (TO)

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…

Presents guidelines that enable classroom teachers to help mildly handicapped students develop two types of text lookback strategies and offers a series of explicit teaching activities that emphasize direct, student-centered instruction. (HOD)

Discusses guided reading as an approach that teachers can use to help young students better comprehend what they are reading. Notes that guided reading allows teachers to talk, think, and read through a text with children, offering questions, comments, and prompts to the children to stimulate their interest and understanding. (MDM)

A study investigated whether comprehension of a text could be enhanced by careful structuring of the lesson elements surrounding it. One group of ten second grade children received a reading lesson as prescribed in a basal series that directed attention to irrelevant content while failing to highlight consistently important story elements. A…

The student of English as a second language in the French school system is confronted with morpho-syntactic and lexical difficulties when he or she reads texts on the university level. In addition to these difficulties, the method of approaching the text may also prove to be a problem. A method is outlined to help the student achieve an active and…