The trend of rising enrollments represents new educational challenges. President Clinton's literacy initiative, America's Reading Challenge, aims to ensure that every child can read independently and well by the end of third grade. This challenge supports grassroots literacy efforts and programs such as Head Start, AmeriCorps, enhanced community…

Outlines three major approaches to writing instruction (expressive, cognitive, and social); examines areas in which faculty, employers, and higher education policymakers agree and disagree about necessary writing skills; describes institutional structures that support writing, including writing centers, course offerings,…

Maintains that a common set of principles governs all tutoring, no matter what the age range, and extending to a variety of formats (including computers). Compares Lev Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development with "scaffolding," both concepts relating to the process of effective educational cooperation between adults and children. (MJP)

Explores the attrition rate of instrumental music students between the initial grade level of instruction and grade seven. Compares retention rates between those programs that housed grades five and six in the same building and those that housed them in separate buildings. Considers implications of these findings. (MJP)

Describes changes in children, schooling, and behavior that have occurred during the 20th century. Argues for the construction of a comprehensive advisory program at the middle level, connected to the central mission of the school to achieve the outcomes of high achievement, good citizenship, strong self-concepts based on attainment, and…

Describes an observational study conducted to determine critical areas of school effectiveness. Notes that quality middle-level education has the components of educational empowerment and involvement and teacher techniques that focus on developmentally appropriate strategies, block scheduling rather than one-period scheduling, and ability grouping…

Examines officials' efforts to improve third-grade students' reading and language arts performances with newly developed curriculum guides and assessment. Interviews officials who developed guidelines/assessments on why they developed this material; how they informed teachers and administrators of their reform goals; and how practitioner should…

Examines changes in language department structure and program content at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Clemson University (South Carolina) as a result of new programs in Business French. The programs were developed in cooperation with the business schools to stem declining language enrollments. (MSE)

Describes a project guided by the resilience paradigm in which a team of 4 social workers and 17 prevention personnel collaborated on programs serving 2000 inner-city adolescents. The project team concluded that a modified consultation model is essential for implementing new techniques and that positive, supportive relationships are singularly…

Christchurch College of Education (New Zealand) offers a distance teacher education course to a rural Maori community experiencing a teacher shortage. Program success is attributed to local initiative in establishing the program, significant local input into program development, attention to the student profile in course design and delivery,…

Reports a cross-sectional study of second language communication among students in a junior high French late immersion program. Effects of language, sex, and grade on willingness to communicate (WTC), anxiety, perceived communication competence, and frequency of communication in French and on attitude/motivation variables are examined globally and…

This study examined the effects of an intervention program to improve the quality of daily interaction between six congenitally deaf-blind children and their 14 educators (teachers, caregivers, and mothers). With video analysis as the most important tool, the interaction coaches trained the educators to recognize the children's signals and attune…

A Scottish council commissioned a study to inform development of policy concerning ability grouping, timetabling, and other practices related to the transition from primary to secondary schooling. Although the researchers became aware that the council expected a report supportive of their policies, the data supported the view that the key to…

A participatory action research process was used to support an Aboriginal men's group in Queensland (Australia). Using a reflective approach, the men's group defined principles and values to which they aspired, then identified four strategies to enable them to become constructive members of the community: personal development, employment,…

Introduces this theme issue's articles, which provide a variety of frameworks for understanding and action in relation to the crisis in child and adolescent mental health. Further emphasizes the challenge to provide resources for all children and to provide ideas for the integration of information between education and mental health professionals.…