This handbook, which suggests activities to help students acquire and improve reading skills, is divided into the following units: (1) vocabulary development--word attack skills and vocabulary acquisition skills, (2) reading comprehension, (3) critical and interpretive reading, (4) work study habits, (5) locating information in books and using…

Emphasis is placed on the need for and techniques in the development of critical reading at the primary level. The following steps for teaching reading as thinking and as acquiring ideas are presented: (1) developing purposes for reading, (2) developing habits of reasoning, and (3) developing habits of testing predictions. Underlying principles…

This course outline for the study of novels by representative writers of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries emphasizes the various novelistic forms. Study objectives include: (1) explanation of how psychological elements motivate characteristics; (2) explanation of how sociological factors influence characters and situations; (3)…

Describes one teacher's reading aloud a Paula Danziger novel to motivate a group of adolescents to think and respond critically to read-aloud fiction. Includes examples of discussion strategies used to help students judge word play, recognize different points of view, and evaluate the author's ability to relate to her audience. (ARH)

Investigates the effect of vocabulary-based and generative-reciprocal inference procedure (GRIP) training on third grade readers' comprehension. Reports that the GRIP group outperformed control and basal inference groups on various inferential transfer tasks, indicating that strategies which help students attend to text clues aid in making…

Recommends the frame of reference method in helping students learn to recognize bias in the questions an author asks, the evidence gathered, and the conclusions drawn. Describes a high school writing-anthropology unit on the Kung San society. Discusses the potentials, problems, and school-linked constraints in using frame of reference models. (IW)

This insightful and practical guide for parents shows how they often undermine rather than encourage their teens' success on one of the most stressful standardized tests--the SAT--and what strategies will remedy the problem. In recent years this test has taken on fearsome proportions, matched only by the growing competition for slots at major…

This collection of essays aims to encourage high school students to improve their reading skills. The essays offer numerous practical teaching ideas for helping students increase their vocabulary and comprehension as well as learn to love the medium of books. Useful ideas revolve around issues such as: guided reading; independent reading; making…

The Culturally Appropriate Teaching (C.A.T.) method combines the "Back to Basics" paradigm with a culturally oriented approach and has proved to be successful in Black colleges and adult education programs. The C.A.T. method improves the reading levels of students by two years per semester and gives them standard English as a skill in one or two…

Describes teaching strategies for students' initial exposure to nonfiction materials to help students' comprehension of new materials of varying opinions, and integration of new knowledge. Provides specific questions to elicit student understanding and utilization of new content, author, organization, biography, style, publishing conventions,…

Argues that textbooks legitimate selective forms of knowledge underlying supposedly democratic reforms heavily influenced by conservative economic/political forces and eclipsing the historical experiences and cultural expression of the less powerful. Views textbooks as part of social construction of reality. Calls for politicized, multiple…

In written texts the culture of colonised subjects is often depicted as immutable and homogeneous. This is evident in the context of New Zealand where representations of Maori frequently serve to reinforce these depictions. This article investigates the potential of critical literacy approaches to challenge student teachers' commonly held beliefs…

This book in intended to train students in reading a research report critically. It uses actual research articles as examples including both good and flawed studies in each category and provides interpretation and evaluation of the appropriateness of the statistical analyses in each study. Individual chapters usually include two sample studies and…

A study tested a questioning technique for teaching critical thinking strategies in a class with student-selected reading materials. Teacher modeling, class discussion, writing, and reading were connected in the process. The pre-test and posttest included student-generated questions and character sketches. Quality of the pre- and posttest…

Intended for use by secondary school teachers in all subject areas, this booklet provides practical information, classroom activities and strategies for the instructor who wants to incorporate reading instruction into a particular content area. Following an introductory chapter that emphasizes the need for reading skills in contemporary society…