Discusses how to teach students in primary and intermediate grades to record and organize information. Highlights include developing a research question; collaborative planning between teachers and library media specialists; consistency of data entry; and an example of a unit on animal migration based on an appropriate Web site. (LRW)

A study of 140 first- and second-grade classrooms and 1,925 students in the Brazilian states of Bahia and Ceara examined teaching practices and teacher behaviors in the classroom and their effects on students' early literacy achievement, as well as the influences of student, home, teacher, and school characteristics on literacy scores. (SV)

Discusses the first plane of development in the context of language work of the age 3-6 classroom. Examines the connections between spoken and written language and explains how literary images reflected in prose and poetry all contribute to a child's development as a reader and a writer. (TJQ)

In this study, mother-child storybook reading was explored as a context within which to support early symbolic communication of four girls (ages 3-7) with Rett syndrome. Access to communication symbols, assistive technologies, and parent training consistently enhanced children's frequency of labeling/commenting and appropriate symbolic…

From their original purpose of preserving strict religious tenets and producing good workers and law-abiding citizens, schools have evolved into multifaceted institutions that have assumed many roles and responsibilities once filled by parents and community agencies. Today's schools seem responsible for correcting every contemporary issue or…

Through focus group interviews, a valuable method of developing client-focused initiatives, the most immediate needs of the faculty staff and students were identified and the collaborative effort between the College of Health (COH) academic staff and the liaison librarian began. Four key areas were identified: information sources/information…

Over the past decade, the concept of "community" has been at the center of reform in literacy education. Most literacy educators agree that community-oriented environments are critical for students' literacy learning, yet many have difficulty building these communities in multicultural and multilingual classrooms. In this article we draw upon the…

This study evaluated the impact of Reading Recovery early literacy intervention on children and classes in London schools. The progress in the 2005-6 school year was compared for 234 of the lowest achieving children in 42 schools serving disadvantaged areas. The children, aged around 6, who received Reading Recovery during the year, were compared…

Measures of Chinese character recognition, vocabulary, and interest in reading were administered to 92 second grade children in Hong Kong, while questionnaires on parental literacy practices were administered to their parents. In a hierarchical regression equation, maternal education, children's age and vocabulary skill predicted 18% of the…

Drawing on data gathered during a seven-month study of the literacy practices of a group of White, working-class girls who have successfully navigated their high school's English curriculum, this ethnography investigates (1) how gender and class influenced the girls' uses of literacy in the classroom and (2) how the girls used texts from English…

This case study describes the impact of high-stakes testing on a first-year teacher's literacy instruction. Results indicated that content from literacy methods courses was often abandoned in favor of compliance to a test preparatory program. As an intervention, I began teaching in the third-grade classroom while the beginning teacher observed.…

Although Chinese has become the third largest mother tongue in both Canada and the USA, Chinese/English biliteracy development has received little attention in educational research. This article explores three Chinese-Canadian first and second graders' biliteracy (Chinese/English reading and writing) and trilingual (Mandarin, Cantonese, and…

This column is a collaborative effort by library media specialists and K-16 educators who write about the motivational strategies that have worked for them in teaching IL skills. Motivational strategies include ways to gain and sustain attention, increase relevance for learning information literacy skills, build confidence in students' developing…

Based on the exploratory study of a 3D multiuser virtual environment (3D MUVE), known as Quest Atlantis (QA), in a series of Primary Four (10- to 11-year-olds) Science lessons at Orchard Primary School in Singapore, this paper examines the issues of learning engagement and describes the socio-cultural context of QA's implementation. The students…

In this article, the author addresses a problem encountered in her own professional life as a teacher of writing in the context of computing, a teaching field often referred to as "computers and writing," "electronic writing," or "computer-assisted writing instruction." The problem she has observed has to do with teaching technology in a…