A study examined 52 stories for grades 1-6, randomly chosen from 10 American and Canadian literature-based reading series containing well-known selections by well-known authors. The study compared the reading series selection to the original story cited in the series acknowledgments, seeking patterns of difference in wording, paragraph structure,…

Repeated readings, story retellings, and dramatic reentactments allow students to become more aware of stories and more familiar with the structure of the stories. Another comprehension strategy is a cloze procedure called the story frame. A story frame uses phrases such as: "This story begins when"; "and then";…

A study examined children's theme comprehension of non-religious moral children's stories. The study used 3 tasks of ascending difficulty: (1) selecting the moral theme when it is found in a multiple-choice context; (2) identifying the story-with-the-same-message when the message is found in a new context; and (3) moral message construction (a…

This document contains a series of short case studies, called "tales" throughout the text, that describe moral dilemmas that arise in the lives of school-aged children. The tales are intended to help children develop their moral judgment and are meant to be read by teachers to their class. Suggestions for classroom use are provided. A…

The spontaneous use of imaging and its relationships to verbal recall and literary analysis were investigated in a study in which 72 college students read a literary text under one of three sets of instructions that manipulated processing depth in an externally valid fashion. Imagery reports and free verbal recalls of the story were collected…

The story is about how Possum wanted a beautiful tail like Raccoon. Raccoon jokingly tells Possum how he got his pretty black stripes by wrapping his tail with hickory bark and singing it in hot ashes. As a result of Possum doing as Raccoon told him, oppossums today have no hair on their tails, travel at night because of embarrassment, and…

This story, one of three in The Sexuality Decision-Making Series for Teens, contains several different possible plot lines depending on the decisions the reader makes for the characters at varous "choice points." The study focuses on the theme of birth control: when Christy and David decide to have sex, they have to face the…

This story, one of three in The Sexuality Decision-Making Series for Teens, contains several different possible plot lines depending on the decisions the reader makes for the characters at various "choice points." The story focuses on the theme of abstinence: Serena and James are in love and need to face the realities of their sexual…

In a study of the effects of pictorial stimuli on story recall, 64 second graders were randomly assigned to two experimental groups and two control groups. The learning materials consisted of two orally presented ten-sentence stories. The experimental subjects viewed pictures while the stories were read, and the control groups followed the printed…

A reduction of children's play in the street was the goal of this study, the first in a series of studies designed to reveal possible solutions to pedestrian and motor vehicle accidents. The effects of of specially designed storybooks (read to children at preschool) on the frequency and duration of children's on the street behavior when playing…

Children's literature provides enjoyment, entertainment, creativity, understanding of self, and the ability to reason. In reading a book aloud, the teacher should encourage children to ask questions and to relate incidents that have happened to them that parallel those in the book. Unfamiliar words can be discussed by using a beginning dictionary…

This paper describes a child-centered first grade classroom where learning to read is viewed as a natural step in the language acquisition process. Discussed in detail are methods of individualizing instruction for four particular children, the use of basal readers, daily writing activities using the Language Experience Approach, and both group…

Sensitivity to story information that conflicted with expectations was examined in kindergarten, second, fourth, and sixth grade children. The children either read or listened to stories about familiar events. One story was consistent with children's "scripts" for these events, while the other story contained script-inconsistent information. All…

Behavioral objectives of the Zip Pak are to have the migrant child indicate 10 percent happier faces on the posttest; to have an equal number of blame-self, blame-others on the posttest; and to have 25 percent more praise-self on the posttest. The workbook for girls consists of an interest survey to help in creating stories related to the child's…

Aim of the Zip Pak is to improve the migrant child's interest in reading. Behavioral objectives are to have the migrant child indicate 10 percent happier faces on the posttest; to have an equal number of blame-self, blame-others on the posttest; and to have 25 percent more praise-self on the posttest. The workbook for boys includes a story about…