Using a Curriculum Characteristics Inventory questionnaire, this study identifies teacher concerns and interests about curriculum materials and discloses teachers' attitudes about the nature and characteristics of curriculum materials. Teachers rated six characteristics in the following order of priority: 1) relevance of subject matter, 2)…

This article presents a rationale for incorporating reading activities with science. It emphasizes that science investigations can provide a background for, and an interest in, reading among students. Three approaches for using science as a vehicle for reading are given: (1) the unit approach; (2) the tradebook, activity card approach; and (3) the…

Addressed to teachers of composition and to other professional students of prose, this book develops a philosophy of composition based on the nature and history of writing. Chapters discuss distinctive features of written speech, the normative character of written speech, progressive tendencies in the history of language and prose, refinement of…

Content area teachers at the secondary level should teach students specific techniques for handling the reading materials in their disciplines. This paper points out the need for administrators to overcome attitudinal barriers of content teachers with regard to teaching reading skills and shows how compulsory attendance laws have led to the…

Argues that new vocabulary words should be presented in concept clusters and related to prior knowledge to facilitate organization in memory. Presents a sample lesson for science vocabulary. (HOD)

Readability formulas applied to materials for hearing-impaired students do not account for important factors in reader-writer-text interaction. Factors include the reader's purpose, cultural background, and extent of background knowledge; writers' assumptions about readers; the text's structure, content, and cohesion; and the role of…

Reflecting the increasing complexity and sophistication in reading research, the papers in this collection represent a wide spectrum of approaches, philosophies, viewpoints, and techniques of scholarly endeavor in their treatment of reading research and instruction. The 52 articles selected from those presented at the 1979 meeting of the National…

This guide is designed to aid schools in establishing a school-wide or system-wide content-area reading program. Guidelines are offered for understanding the learner, and suggestions are given for assessing the needs, abilities, interests, and goals of students. Formulating instructional objectives and procedures includes planning approaches both…

This book is intended to help prospective teachers, students in teacher training schools, and in-service teachers to improve high school and junior high school students' reading in their various subject-content classes. Chapters one through six and thirteen through seventeen contain material that applies to all academic subjects in the secondary…

Describes a staff-development program designed to assist content area teachers in learning about their students' reading abilities, in analyzing the readability of instructional materials, and in developing teaching techniques that match student reading skills to content area materials. (FL)

Intended for secondary school content area teachers, this book provides a sequence of steps through which classroom content area reading programs can be developed. The chapters discuss the following: (l) four methods of diagnosis for content area reading; (2) a procedure for assessing the richness of retellings; (3) approaches to content area…

To compare both the effect of and the student attitude toward instruction in outlining and graphic organization, 72 grade 10 world history students were divided into three treatment groups. Two groups, one of which had previously received 14 weeks of summarization training, were instructed in a three-step procedure for creating a graphic organizer…

Reflecting the popularity of television viewing, the use of captioned video cassettes bridges the gap between "televiewing" and reading, and can be used to improve the reading skills of college students, who see these materials as helpful in improving concentration, mental imagery, speed, and comprehension. Cassettes, either of captioned…

Classroom based research investigating the actual context of reading requires examination of the texts chosen, the purposes for which they are to be read, the strategies to be used in actually reading them, and, finally, the outcomes expected from reading them. Among the studies that have pioneered research of this kind are (1) those directed by…

Approaches to improving students' skills in reading social studies materials are presented in this book. The first chapter discusses reading problems and orientations to reading in the social studies. The remaining three chapters deal with three problem areas: making a suitable match between pupil reading abilities and instructional materials,…