There are some 1,400 schools of education in the United States--schools that prepare the teachers who teach most of America's elementary and secondary students. By virtue of their numbers, and the fact that some 70 percent of their three million public school teachers have attended these institutions as undergraduates, education schools seem a…

This article reviews research to examine how teaching and learning are improved with the use of narrative story materials. Stories help to focus the reader's attention and build personal connection, resulting in better retention and deeper subject-matter understanding. Four key advantages of narratives cited by D. T. Willingham are discussed. The…

Because today's students have grown up steeped in video games and the Internet, most of them expect feedback, and usually gratification, very soon after they expend effort on a task. Teachers can get quick feedback to students by showing them videotapes of their learning performances. The author, a 3rd grade teacher describes how the seemingly…

CD-ROM storybooks can support the development of the five essential elements of reading instruction identified by The National Reading Panel: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Specific features inherent in these texts, audio pronunciation of text, embedded vocabulary definitions and animated graphics can be used…

Two studies of Grade 1 reading interventions for English-language (EL) learners at risk for reading problems were conducted. Two samples of EL students were randomly assigned to a treatment or untreated comparison group on the basis of their language of instruction for core reading (i.e., Spanish or English). In all, 91 students completed the…

This investigation examined how cooperating teachers (CTs) influence the behaviors and quality of student teachers' (STs) reading instruction. Improving the reading achievement of early elementary students and enhancing teacher quality are two education reform priorities for Title I schools that have important implications for teacher education.…

The purpose of this article is to question the amount of time that beginning readers should spend reading connected text in school. Based on a study of 66 children in 26 classrooms, the authors found that children in first-grade classrooms with "less" reading of connected text achieved more in their phonics learning than children in classrooms…

Computer assisted learning (CAL) can involve a computerised intelligent learning environment, defined as an environment capable of automatically, dynamically and continuously adapting to the learning context. One aspect of this adaptive capability involves automatic adjustment of instructional procedures in response to each learner's performance,…

By evoking the concept of memory pictures, the author recalls her early years as a teacher. Rather than calling herself a beginning teacher, she characterizes herself as a fledgling teacher to capture the insecurity associated with the first years of teaching. This experience is narrated through five memory pictures: (1) the new school's many…

This article describes a teacher-as-researcher project conducted by Karen Shelton (second author), a hard-working middle school teacher. This project focused on using written conversation as an instructional strategy to integrate reading, writing, and social studies. The authors begin with a classroom vignette to describe how William Bintz (first…

Components of first-grade intervention programs that addressed oral language and listening comprehension instruction within an intensive literacy intervention for native Spanish-speaking students struggling with reading difficulties are described. Findings for the intervention are based on 4 large-scale experimental studies (published elsewhere)…

Efforts to improve social studies at the elementary level have not fared well in recent years. Federal demands for greater emphasis on mathematics and reading instruction have had a direct impact on social studies instruction--eroding elementary teachers' time and energy for the subject. In spite of this changing context, many states still test…

Frequently, students with emotional and behavior disorders (EBD) exhibit academic underachievement combined with high levels of externalizing behaviors and resistance to instructional efforts. Regardless of the present reading initiatives, research focusing on interventions for teaching reading to students with EBD continues to be limited. This…

This study is a follow-up on a previous study of the effects of 2 beginning reading programs implemented in 1st grade. In the previous study, 40 1st-grade students who were matched based on their Concepts About Print Test (Clay, 1979) and Phonological Segmentation Fluency from the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS; Good…

Nine 16-17-year-old adjudicated males below grade level in reading participated in this data-based case study. Weekly, 5 students received instruction from "Corrective Reading Decoding" Level B2 (Engelmann et al., 1998) for 180 min, and 4 students received instruction designed by a reading specialist (RS group) for 345 min. After 19…