Students are rarely given the opportunity of being decisionmakers in class, and when they are, they may feel unsure of how to organize their own learning. However, over time they come to appreciate the benefits of a more active engagement in learning English. In this paper, I describe a procedure based on Exploratory Practice (EP) for guiding…

Teaching reading strategies and guiding students towards self-regulated reading routines are promising approaches to fostering reading comprehension in students with learning disabilities. The aim of this study was to evaluate in a sample of 73 fifth to eighth graders with learning disabilities (IQ higher than 85 and reading skills below…

Children with developmental disorders may present with listening and/or speech discrimination difficulties. This study explores whether teachers can identify these difficulties, using a questionnaire that rates children's listening, speech discrimination and comprehension abilities. The questionnaire was given to class-teachers of 52 pupils, aged…

This study examined how well cognitive abilities predict high school students' science achievement as measured by traditional content-based tests. Students (n = 1,651) from four high schools in three states were assessed on their science knowledge, reading skill, and reading strategy knowledge. The dependent variable, content-based science…

Using multi-institution data and a longitudinal, pretest-posttest design, this study investigated the impact of honors programs on student experiences of good practices in undergraduate education as well as cognitive development in the first year of college. We found students in honors programs advantaged in terms of the good practice measures…

Upper-elementary students encounter a sometimes dizzying array of traditional and nontraditional texts both in and outside of the classroom. This practical handbook helps teachers in grades 4-6 harness the instructional potential of fiction, poetry, and plays; informational texts; graphic novels; digital storytelling; Web-based and multimodal…

The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) program is exploring a change in Section 3 of the TOEFL test that would replace the vocabulary subpart with additional reading comprehension questions. This study investigated the proposed revision in terms of the length and timing that would be necessary to address concerns of test speededness of…

This article begins by affirming that the use of computers in language teaching makes sense only if teachers have computer expertise that allows them to create programs that fit their specific pedagogical needs. A program is presented called "musical dictation," which serves as an example of what can be done by a teacher with…

This paper provides a new teaching design that addresses difficulties in listening and speaking aspects experienced by Taiwanese adults when learning English and addresses the special needs of this learning group. The design was developed to solve these learning difficulties through integration of certain aspects of three existing teaching…

This paper examines the English listening journals of 23 Taiwanese university students learning English. The listening journal requires that students listen to one English language program a week, write a brief synopsis, and comment upon self-listening abilities and the program, including what s/he learned. Journals are graded according to effort…

A study examined how elementary school children spontaneously construct meaning when reading informational text. In particular, the study explored: what kinds of knowledge they draw on and how they use it to help them understand what they read; and how does what they do influence what they recall. Twenty-nine 6th graders from two elementary…

The relationship between embedded support devices (ESDs) and study results was examined to determine whether ESDs have a positive effect on study outcome. Two versions of a learning unit of a governmental law course at the Open University of the Netherlands were constructed. One represented the original text and the other was about 40% shorter as…

Teachers at an elementary school in a working class neighborhood outside Houston, Texas, invited children and their parents to attend 10 Parent-Child Literacy Workshops held on Saturday mornings in spring 1994. Spanish and English speaking parents, together with their children, began each Saturday session by listening to their child read in the…

This book is a collection of classroom activities, exercises, and suggestions for reading instruction, contributed by teachers who have used them in English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) classes. It is organized in three major sections: extensive reading (reading a great deal of comprehensible material); intensive reading (focusing on specific skills…

Offering practical, classroom-based strategies teachers can use to promote literacy development, this book presents many examples of children engaging in discussion activities about narrative and informational text that emphasize collaborating, constructing meaning, and using these different types of texts to arrive at new understandings. Chapters…