High-quality preschool programs are essential to improving children's outcomes in reading achievement and leveling language and literacy disparities among students from diverse backgrounds. Grounded in state-of-the-art research evidence, this practice-oriented book demonstrates how preschool professionals can create, evaluate, and sustain…

This report describes a pre-entry summer program at the School of Veterinary Medicine at Tuskegee Institute, Alabama, designed to develop attitudinal readiness and coqnitive abilities of students who face a high risk of attrition because of inadequate learning skills. The program, which runs for eight weeks, consists of three phases: 1) phase one,…

The main goal of the study was to document and describe the beginnings of the implementation of the Strategic Instructional Model at five (5) middle schools in the EPISD. The study also examined Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) data from those students that participated in the program. Methodology: Implementation information was…

An unacceptably high first-grade retention rate prompted a study of the early childhood program in the District of Columbia Public Schools, because the system had invested heavily in the program with little success. This report summarizes how the study began, what the study has revealed, and how this research is transforming a major urban school…

Provides an update on community college responses to the new student majority who lack the skills to succeed in college-level work. Defines "at-risk students," identifies college responses to literacy problems, describes promising instructional strategies, and highlights problems in evaluating programs for at-risk students. (DMM)

This book provides an overall perspective to program development for gifted children and youth. The approaches used draw on many theories, points of view, and program structures. Chapter titles are as follows: "Identification of the Gifted,""Strategies for Teaching the Gifted,""Organizing the Gifted Program,""Building Support for the Gifted…

Four articles are included: (1) a study that identified barriers to effective extension programing for at-risk youth; (2) Project LEAD, which is designed to prevent delinquency by positively affecting attitudes of youth at risk; (3) Illinois extension's approach to drug education; and (4) Ohio's Tobacco Risk Awareness Program. (JOW)

This is a report on the Kamehameha Early Education Program (KEEP), a research and development project designed to find ways of improving the school performance of educationally disadvantaged Hawaiian children. The project, implemented in a laboratory school setting and continuously monitored, is described as a reading instruction program for…

PRIDE (Providing Resources and Information Designed to Educate) is an after school tutorial project for Hispanic students, grades 7-9, attending the school district of Saginaw, Michigan. The project is intended to provide approximately 70 at-risk Hispanic junior high students with an after school center where they can go to receive help with their…

The seven papers in this collection focus on effective teaching strategies for using technology, the evaluation of school technology programs, and the design and use of technology-related products. Titles of the individual papers are (1) "Student Empowerment in a High Computer-Access Environment--An Exploratory Study (ACOT Report No. 1)"…

Five essays for reading instructors at two-year colleges are provided in this issue of "Forum for Reading." First, Kent Smith notes the increased recruitment of underprepared students and argues that colleges are responsible for assuring that admissions personnel, administrators, and faculty know the types of students they can and cannot…

Struggling adolescent readers need interventions that provide them with opportunities to read more and to read better. The authors examine two case studies of interventions at work and propose criteria on which to evaluate intervention programs. Their review of the evidence on these programs for struggling adolescent readers suggests that at least…

Discussed is the difficulty encountered in teaching humanities to underprepared students at Florida A & M University, where 90 percent of the students are in the special admissions category that permits enrollment of students who score below the entrance requirement. Administrative neglect of the humanities is also addressed. (JMD)

This practicum was developed to encourage the at-risk urban elementary school student to read for pleasure daily. Participants listened to their favorite rap songs, wrote lyrics for their own rap songs, and then read the lyrics as a text. The practicum was performed in a neighborhood community recreation center that serves urban students from…

Project SOLID START is an integrated reading program involving regular classroom, special education, and reading teachers, and parent volunteers in the Melrose, Massachusetts public schools. SOLID START supports beginning literacy in a developmental, rather than a remedial, mode. The project tests the hypothesis that a carefully structured,…