Examines the benefits of allowing children ample and regular time periods to read on their own and in their own area of interest in relation to the need for children to understand reading as more than a series of unrelated workbook exercises. (HTH)

Offers Request, the Directed Reading-Thinking Activity, the Expectation Outline, the Prereading Guided Reading Procedure, Word Wonder, and Semantic Webbing as techniques that use many of the basic principles of the directed reading activity while adjusting to the needs of specific materials and students. (FL)

Discusses instructional approaches to content area reading that are described in ERIC documents. Among the areas discussed are prereading activities; strategies to support comprehension as students read; an integrated approach to vocabulary, comprehension, and textbook organization; and kits of materials for integrating reading skills into content…

Suggests that critical reading and reading comprehension be taught separately at first to insure that students learn both to understand and to evaluate pieces of writing. (MKM)

Describes multilevel French reading course at Houston Baptist University in which class time is divided into instructor-directed time where students and instructor work together and student-directed time where students work individually or in small groups with learning modules. Students contract for grades and work at their own pace. (BK)

Presents two cross-checking activities to help K-3 students learn decoding. The cross-checking involves decoding by using the consonants in a word along with the context. Children learn to decode by thinking about two things simultaneously (what word would make sense in a sentence and the word's letters and sounds). (SM)

Discusses how directed reading activities and vocabulary guides can be used in an English classroom to help improve students' reading comprehension. (HOD)

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

Written questions and answers lead to original thinking and writing and to better reading class management than does the "directed reading activity" approach to reading instruction. (JM)

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)

Discusses the applications of Russell G. Stauffer's work to the teaching of reading. (JL)

Suggests using the Guided Reading Procedure as a prereading activity and as a postreading activity when students have read different materials. (MKM)

Shows how a content area teacher can help students relate prior experiences to the new information to be gained through the reading assignment. (MKM)

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)

The article describes the Direct Instruction Skills Plan, a comprehensive plan for direct and text-related reading skill instruction which places skill instruction prior to text reading. Steps include anticipatory set, objective and input, modeling, purpose setting and guided application, independent practice, checking for understanding, real-life…