Provides practical suggestions for teachers to integrate cultural pluralism in three reading strategies: (1) reading workshops; (2) writing workshops; (3) language experience approaches that make a valuable contribution to students of all cultural backgrounds. (Author/VWL)

Because both whole language and traditional skill-based instruction have strengths, educators should use a combined approach that includes direct instruction in phonics and reading comprehension skills along with whole language instruction. (Author/TE)

Analyzes six ideas related to language experience intended to improve the teaching of reading. (RB)

Noting that comprehension studies have stressed the importance of determining the main idea of reading instruction, this paper offers a teaching strategy--the Modified Language Experience Method--that has proven successful in teaching main ideas to secondary school students. The paper first compares the strategy, which begins with the general…

This program, included in "Effective Reading Programs...," serves 879 first- and second-graders, plus one fourth-grade class. The students are predominantly middle-class whites living in a small city. The program is an initial reading program designed to complement any basal reading series. The instructional strategy is based on the…

Describes a modified language experience approach which was successful in developing reading skills in prelingually, profoundly deaf students. (EKN)

Describes Project Prolexia which emphasizes building self-confidence, and healthy attitudes toward learning in each child as he progresses through formal skills in reading, math, science, social studies, and the creative arts. (Author/RB)

This program, included in "Effective Reading Programs...," serves 150 children in kindergarten through grade 9 who are reading below grade level and show measurable potential for improvement. The activities in which children engage depend on the diagnosis of their skill deficiencies. At each grade level, a reading specialist leads small…

Suggests that by using a variation of the language experience approach, teachers can facilitate the learning of both science and reading. (FL)

This study hypothesized that an intervention program that would develop students' language facility in lower elementary school might increase the students' likelihood of retention. An outgrowth of a family literacy project which focused on raising the literacy level of an Appalachian community, the study used the Language Experience Approach which…

Most content area teachers face a common problem--students who cannot read their textbooks or who do so with difficulty. Before they can provide help for such students, teachers must first try to understand the reasons why the students have reading problems and then they must find some way to teach subject content and reading at the same time.…

This program, included in "Effective Reading Programs...," serves K-5 students in a small rural town. The strengths of children are the focus of this program, which uses teaching strategies introduced by Robert Wilson of the University of Maryland reading center. Teacher-prepared diagnostic tests and skills checklists are used to…

When a child uses his words and his ideas in learning to read, he also assists in the normal integration of his personality. Starting with a method of language experience developed by Sylvia Ashton-Warner, the author, a reading consultant, describes a language experience-reading program which utilizes the student's own curiosity and interests. (RK)

Discusses the language experience approach (LEA) to teaching reading and offers suggestions for six types of LEA stories: student selected, class shared, shape, patterned, written dialogue, and directed language teaching. (FL)