Elementary and secondary school teachers and school administrators often say they get their information about educational practice from colleagues and from inservice meetings. Research, however, suggests that teachers seldom talk shop with their colleagues. This leaves professional journals as the clearest channel of communication about…

Two experiments were conducted to determine whether a meaning emphasis or a word identification emphasis would give better results in a third grade reading lesson. The results investigated more than 30 factors and their two-way interactions. In the first experiment, 259 children were placed into reading groups arranged either homogeneously or…

A study investigated the effects of selected psychophysiological factors known to affect cognitive functioning on the reading achievement of older adults. The subjects, 34 noninstitutionalized adults ranging in age from 50 to 88 years, completed measures of (1) self-reported mental and physical health, (2) nonverbal intelligence, (3) reading…

The first grade study suggested that books that interest inner city children interest suburban children. (JH)

This paper provides some examples of American English that have been borrowed from other cultures and languages, and proposes that teachers develop students' lifelong reading interests through the study of folklore and dialect materials. Language development and appreciation relate to personal identity development insofar as individuals express…

This monograph presents classroom activities that were designed to encourage children to read and write in a self-reliant and responsible manner. The activities were chosen for their relevance to the children involved and because the vocabulary involved was interesting, familiar, and worth remembering and using again. The topics are arranged in…

Middle-school students, called "transescent learners," are at an age during which they undergo physical and intellectual changes that affect them emotionally and socially, causing confused thinking and insecure feelings. This paper offers seven guidelines to help the middle-school teacher select and present reading materials that enhance learning…

Concerned with the need to stimulate reading pleasure for older adolescents, this document outlines a high school reading unit that capitalizes on the perennial popularity of series books such as Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, and Tom Swift. Suggested activities include having students reflect on their personal reading and write a fictional sketch…

The reading interests of a group of older adults were examined. Subjects were 16 adults between the ages of 50 and 85 who read five stories from "Readers' Digest" short story collections and who responded to a questionnaire about their preferences for the stories, their reading habits and interests, and the appealing elements of the stories. The…

The individualized reading approach is a means of teaching reading to middle school students using self-selection of books by students, individual teacher-student conferences, and grouping according to needs and interests. During the teacher-student conferences, the students share their feelings about the book they are reading as the teacher…

Historically less emphasis has been put on the importance of attitude factors than on the skills of reading. When defining attitudes as a person's views, interests, expectations, and so on, attitude toward reading is a combination of all components that contribute to a person's underlying disposition to reading including expectations, interest,…

A survey of 320 employees of Honeywell, Inc., was conducted to collect data on interactions between employees' levels of integration into the organizational hierarchy, amount and type of employee newsletter reading, and purposes for reading newsletters (keeping track of friends, finding out what was going on in the company, improving one's…

THE MULTIRACIAL, MULTICULTURAL DETROIT CITY SCHOOL SERIES PREPRIMERS, DEVELOPED FOR DISADVANTAGED PUPILS, HAVE CAREFULLY CHOSEN BASIC VOCABULARIES, HIGH INTEREST VALUE, AND BREVITY. WHEN THE NEW SERIES WAS COMPARED WITH A STANDARD ONE, IT WAS FOUND THAT THE CITY SERIES PROMOTED GREATER VERBAL COMPETENCE AND MORE DESIRE TO READ WAS MUCH MORE…

The four papers in this collection focus on cross-cultural concerns related to literature and literacy. The first paper discusses the development of children's literature as a field of study, and describes the emerging interest in children's literature as reflected in library collections, exhibits and book fairs, professional conferences,…

One hundred eleventh and twelfth grade students were grouped according to their knowledge of and interest in baseball and were then tested for their recall of information presented with varying levels and amounts of background information and analogy. The information was presented in the following ways: (1) analogy embedded in text, (2) analogy…