This paper describes the home and school experiences of 12 children from bilingual (mostly Chinese/English) homes who, before beginning first grade, demonstrated advanced ability to comprehend written English. Results demonstrate that lack of fluency in oral English should not exclude children from advanced instruction in reading. (Author/JDD)

Examined the influence of 4 variables (supplementary mother-tongue instruction, length of residence in the host country, self-esteem, and schools) on the French oral comprehension and expression of 137 minority language immigrant children in 4 Montreal elementary schools. Results found that supplementary mother-tongue instruction did not…

How people evaluate primary and secondary sources when considering historical questions was studied by asking eight historians and eight high school seniors to think aloud while reviewing written and pictorial documents about the Battle of Lexington. Differences between the groups are discussed concerning cognitive processes and beliefs about…

Discusses the potential that school mathematics has for being a source of exploration and discovery for students and teachers. Provides a process-oriented definition of understanding mathematics. Presents activities in which students construct computer and actual models of polyhedra and make conjectures regarding a medical research application of…

This review of research on assessment of second-language listening abilities looks at some testing issues and challenges (assessing higher-level skills, confounding of skills, assessing listening in oral interaction, authenticity), discusses assessment methods and techniques (test administration, item formats), and considers potential applications…

An experiment in a grade 2 French immersion program compared performance of a group-taught music lessons totally integrated into classroom instruction and a group not given music instruction. Pre- and post-tests of tonal-rhythmic patterns and form that have commonalities with pronunciation, oral grammar, vocabulary, and reading comprehension found…

Studied reading comprehension, vocabulary, general knowledge, and print exposure of 11th graders who completed reading battery 10 years earlier. Found that first-grade reading ability predicted all 11th-grade outcomes--even when cognitive ability was partialed out--and was linked to print exposure, even after 11th-grade reading comprehension…

Examines the relationship between vocal pitch accuracy and gender, grade level, and the presence or absence of an accompanying unison voice. Reveals no significant differences between unison or individual singing or for gender. Fourth and fifth graders exhibited significant differences. (MJP)

Elementary teachers Fay and Whaley share anecdotes of how carefully listening to English language learners read--and discussing with them their errors and confusions--helps teachers better analyze such students' true language and reading abilities. They discuss the importance of spending time talking individually with each child learning to read…

This study examined the word-structure knowledge of novice teachers and the progress of children tutored by a subgroup of the teachers. Teachers' word-structure knowledge was assessed using three tasks: graphophonemic segmentation, classification of pseudowords by syllable type, and classification of real words as phonetically regular or…

The authors evaluated the effectiveness of explicit reading comprehension strategies instruction, followed by practice in teacher-led whole-class activities (STRAT), reciprocal same-age (STRAT + SA) peer-tutoring activities, or cross-age peer-tutoring activities (STRAT + CA) on 2nd and 5th graders' reading comprehension and self-efficacy…

Theatre is a powerful tool for organizing one's experience. It is an instructional technique that motivates students as they seek to understand and communicate their learning. This article provides a foundation for using theatre as a learning strategy in the content areas for students with reading and learning disabilities, using metacognition as…

In 1997, the National Institute of Child Health Development, under the direction of Congress and the Secretary of Education, created the National Reading Panel to study scientifically based reading research. The Reading First initiative under President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act focused on five of the panel's research topics: phonemic…

In order to meet the goals of No Child Left Behind, standardized testing is preeminent as the sole indicator determining whether states all across America demonstrate adequate yearly progress regarding the improvement of student achievement in literacy education. This book will help teachers and parents raise children's scores on standardized…

A study investigated the effects of the Directed Reading Thinking Activity on Egyptian first-year secondary stage EFL students' referential and inferential reading comprehension. The study utilized a pretest-posttest control group experimental design. The subjects consisted of 72 first-year secondary students in Menouf Secondary School for Boys at…