This paper describes three alternative perspectives--information processing, social constructivism, and Piagetian/naturalist--of reading/writing connections and suggests instructional implications influenced by the three perspectives. The paper explores each theory in terms of basic assumptions, related research, and strengths and limitations and…

Designed and programmed by the staff of the Courseware and Curriculum Applications (CCA) Group (a unit of the Computer-Based Education Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), this instructor's guide describes a computer-based reading comprehension curriculum designed for adults and adolescents who read at the…

One promising alternative to the traditional workshop format of inservice teacher education is to bring researchers and teachers more closely together, in classrooms, where the two groups can work as a team addressing those needs the teachers have defined. A teacher and a researcher collaborated in a 3-month effort to improve the way the teacher…

The reading exercises in this workbook cover the general areas of letter recognition; basic phonics; word structure (including common phonograms, compound words, contractions, possessives, plural forms, and suffixes); vocabulary (including identifying picture names, rhyming words, and word meanings); study skills (including following directions,…

A three-part study examining the efficacy of a reading recovery program for learning disabled first grade students is described in this paper. An introduction outlines the Ohio Reading Recovery project and explains the purpose of the study. Part 1 describes the first phase of the study, in which 110 poor readers, including 35 learning disabled…

Noting that skills and knowledge taught in schools have become abstracted from their uses in the world, this paper clarifies some of the implications for the nature of the knowledge that students acquire through a proposal for the retooling of apprenticeship methods for the teaching and learning of cognitive skills. The paper specifically proposes…

Intended for educators, politicians, and the corporate community, this book examines the facts and the serious implications of the complicated problem of illiteracy, placing it squarely within the context of America's history and current cultural environment, and recommending far-reaching, programmatic solutions rather than "quick fixes." The book…

This teacher training guide includes three major units that deal with the teaching of listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills in Spanish in the bilingual classroom. Each packet includes objectives, materials, and activities that help develop and promote students' receptive and productive skills. Other major topics covered include: the…

A pilot tutor training project, the Student-Tutor Orientation (STO), was designed to meet the need for making whole-language concepts of reading and writing instruction accessible to tutors as well as students through hands-on experience and for establishing a collaborative tutoring relationship in which students share in decision making.…

Based upon case studies, surveys conducted in 18 participating school districts in fall 1987 and spring 1988, meeting observations, discussions with project staff, and an audit trail, this report evaluates the first year of the Wisconsin Rural Reading Improvement Project (WRRIP), a school improvement project aimed at helping small, rural schools…

Writing to Read (WTR) is a computer-based instructional system designed to develop writing and reading skills of students in the primary grades. Evaluation of the WTR program in West Virginia was conducted with kindergarten students only. Thirty-one kindergartens in five counties were involved in the evaluation study as the treatment group,…

Project READ had a two-fold purpose: to improve the reading levels of diagnosed learning disabled adults, and to investigate the following research questions: (1) which of three teaching approaches selected for this study is most effective for reading disabled adults? (2) what is effective assessment? and (3) how may the impact of reading…

A practicum was conducted to improve reading comprehension in classroom performance with the basal reading series and on norm-referenced tests. Subjects included a fifth-grade class of 28 students who were paired with another fifth-grade class as peer teachers. New skills were taught and practiced with the target population early in the week. On…

This paper describes a practicum in which a comprehensive daily writing program was implemented to determine the effectiveness of the writing process in improving the self-esteem as well as the reading skills of first-grade students. The target group was 11 first graders who, out of a class of 25 students, had failed the comprehension part of the…

A study examined the new editions of four of the best-selling reading programs along with workbooks of several different publishers of social studies, science, and language arts programs. An analysis was carried out of the types of tasks found in workbooks and the content of the tasks. Results indicated that the workbooks contain numerous and…