This Winter 2005 issue of "Learners in Action" contains the following: (1) Proud Dad Turns Family Life Around (Nick Prince); (2) Learners Make a Great Impression at Conference; (3) The Story behind the Story; and (4) Learner Resources.

The purpose of this research report was to analyze the effectiveness and attitudes of students in grades six through eight who are enrolled in a balanced literacy program. There were 188 students enrolled in the program ranging in ages from 11 to 17. Twenty percent of the students in the program have been retained at least once. The program…

Most struggling readers, including those with reading disabilities, have difficulties recognizing printed words. This unique, lucidly written book synthesizes the research on how children learn to read words skillfully and translates it into step-by-step strategies for the classroom. The author demonstrates how to plan and implement a coordinated…

The inner world of education is explored through the examination of different types of educational materials. Content analysis and symbolic interactionism are used to study educational and pedagogical communication. These approaches are used in four studies of educational texts. Chapter 1, "Study of Educational Texts," introduces the…

Increasingly, foreign nationals living in Japan are sending their children to Japanese elementary schools. This requires that the children's native language be taught outside of school, most often at home. While teaching oral language is not difficult for parents, teaching reading requires different skills. Some difficulties in this process are…

Making a case for the value of literature-based instruction, this book presents an overview of the extensive knowledge base supporting literature-based approaches to literacy instruction. It notes that literature-based instruction goes beyond simply changing the kinds of texts children read--also required in literature-based instruction are an…

An ethnographic study described a successful educational environment for students from low-income families and examined what it is about those environments that makes them successful. The subject class was a combined fourth and fifth grade class at Taft Elementary School in a predominantly African American working class community two miles from…

Despite movements to fight illiteracy in Laos, the number of illiterates in 1997 remains around 300,000 which represents 27% of people in the 15-40 age group. Concentrated Language Encounter (CLE) techniques were adapted for teaching reading and writing in the Lao language. A pilot project implemented CLE techniques at nine pilot schools in two…

Responding to a call to action by California's state leaders to make reading instruction in the early grades a top priority in the public schools, this booklet discusses California's new K-3 reading program. It begins with a discussion of what prompted this new focus on reading, and then discusses the four major elements of a balanced reading…

This software product teaches reading skills beyond simple word recognition. The accompanying twelve printed lesson plans are designed to complement the reading skills with other methods and areas of emphasis including kinesthetic learning, listening skills, decision making skills, syntactic understanding, word analysis, dictionary skills, and…

This software product uses word and picture association, matching, fill in the blank, and sentence construction that focus on making the user (K-3 students) a competent whole sentence reader in English or Spanish. The accompanying printed lesson plans are designed to complement the reading skills with other methods and areas of emphasis including…

Noting that little in language can be understood without taking into consideration the wider picture of communicative purpose, content, context, and audience, this book address practical uses of various approaches to discourse analysis. Several assumptions run through the chapters: knowledge is socially constructed; the manner in which language…

Much is being emphasized in staff development in the area of reading instruction. It is important for teachers to study and think reflectively about what can be done to improve the elementary reading curriculum. One procedure that can be used is to hold a quality workshop based on the needs of reading teachers. Teachers might volunteer to serve on…

A study focused on involving parents in a reading workshop to teach parents strategies used in their child's classroom. Subjects consisted of 11 parents (who were already highly involved in their child's classroom) of first-grade children from an affluent elementary school in central Virginia who agreed to participate in the workshop. Parents…

Frank Smith (1988) describes a "literacy club" as a classroom where no child is excluded from a wealth of reading and writing activities. One teacher, in designing a literacy club for his classroom, wanted to use a "balanced literacy" approach because using such an approach would allow him to incorporate many different…