Maintains that pictures are one constant aspect of children's books. Reviews research on whether pictures hinder or facilitate the development of reading skills in young children. Provides suggestions on when and where pictures might provide instructional support. (CFR)

This study compared the effectiveness of two interventions that differed in the nature of dialogic interactions among teachers and students in reading groups. Teacher-interns (n=35) instructed 109 children with mild disabilities in special education resource rooms. Analyses indicated that the intervention featuring dialog, social interactions, and…

Describes a collaborative project between a college elementary education course and a fifth-grade class that used electronic mail to learn about teaching reading and language arts. Highlights include the idea of the fifth graders as the experts; reducing computer anxiety; evaluation results from both student groups; and future revisions. (LRW)

Examined first-year results of the Success for All (SFA) program, designed to bring every student to grade level in reading by third grade. Found that SFA benefits were most significant at the kindergarten level; teachers were highly accepting of the program; and the program's strengths included cooperative learning, regrouping, tutoring, early…

Discusses the role of higher education institutions and training schools in the education of foreign language teachers in the United Kingdom, focusing on the importance of teaching methods, didactics, and pedagogy at these respective institutions. (six references) (MDM)

Observations of second- and third-grade teachers who participated in a staff development program illustrate teachers' difficulties with getting low achievers to focus on and understand the process of being strategic and with using literacy tasks to teach strategy. (BB)

Examined the relationship between a teacher's understanding, and six bilingual, Mexican-American third graders' understanding, of modified cloze reading lessons that were taught during an academic year. Students were able to use context clues and describe what the modified cloze procedure involved. However, students rarely understood the purpose…

Presents research on using small groups to help students think and reason about literature. Examines various small-group activities in ninth grade English classrooms. Analyzes effective and ineffective small-group work. Concludes that effective small-group work requires coherent activities that result in the sustained production of student…

Twenty-four resource room teachers were trained in either teaching Question-Answer Relationships (QARs) or traditional methods of reading comprehension instruction, including literal questions, locating supporting details, and drawing conclusions. Results indicated that QARs readily accommodated to content area reading material and elevated…

Interviews with 16 deaf high school students and 9 teachers found that teachers underestimated the extent of students' independent comprehension of 3 types of text. The text perceived to be most difficult by both teachers and students was the most interesting to students (but not teachers) and fostered use of a greater variety of metacognitive…

The Reading Assistance Tutorial (R.A.T.) Pack is a systematic, multidisciplinary remedial reading program incorporating listening, speaking, seeing, writing, thinking, and comprehension skills. The sequenced activities demand a high percentage of on-task behavior and train phonological processing strategies and functional language use. Research…

Research suggests several types of test-anxious students. Techniques for lessening anxiety include teaching metacognitive and learning strategies, using cooperative learning activities, and creating a nonthreatening environment. A survey of 102 developmental reading college students indicated that teacher behavior during testing and pretest review…

This article discusses reading and writing as (1) cognitive processes influenced by social and cultural contexts; (2) sociocognitive processes; (3) a social relationship between authors and readers; and (4) social and cultural activities. Pedagogy and politics in the whole language classroom are also discussed. (JDD)

Considers several topics related to children and reading, including the author's childhood reading experiences, her experiences writing about and teaching children's literature, the effects of television on reading, types of literature-based reading programs, and requirements for a successful reading program. (23 references) (MES)

Analysis of research on reading instruction for children with moderate mental retardation indicated that word analysis instruction is a feasible option; word analysis is the most effective method of oral reading error correction; and the strongest sight-word instruction methods include those that use picture integration, constant delay, and the…