To examine the effects of students reading multiple documents on their perceptions of a historical event, in this case the "discovery" of America by Christopher Columbus, 85 high school freshmen read 3 of 4 different texts (or sets of texts) dealing with Columbus. One text was an encyclopedia article, one a set of articles from…

A study investigated the effectiveness of Emergent Reader Literacy Instruction (ERLI), an eclectic approach to teaching reading which incorporates phonics, basal texts, quality literature, and writing instruction through daily inclusion of guided reading, word wall/making words, self-directed reading, and writing. A preliminary investigation,…

Two experiments investigated the effects of sources of strategy information on children's acquisition and transfer of reading outcomes and strategy use. Children with reading skill deficiencies received comprehension instruction on main ideas. In the first experiment, the final sample comprised 33 students (21 fourth graders, 12 fifth gaders)…

Poor readers and reading age level controls performed a primed picture naming task and a lexical decision task. Additionally, vocabulary performance was assessed for both groups. Subjects were 42 Dutch children--mean age for the poor readers was 145 months and for controls was 117 months. In the picture naming task there were three priming…

Models of self-regulated learning describe learners as actively and mindfully employing cognitive and metacognitive strategies as they pursue their learning goals. Self-regulated learners set goals, plan, and use a variety of cognitive strategies, monitor progress towards their goals, and manage their emotional states. However, many classroom…

A study aimed to examine how reading assessment information is understood and used by two powerful groups: federal legislators and members of the news media. Attempts were made to contact federal legislators on educational subcommittees to discuss how they used reading assessment information to make legislative policy decisions and to vote on…

A study explored 18 Georgia third graders' perceptions of literacy teaching and learning during the second year of their teacher's transition from a traditional, textbook-based approach to a whole language, literature-based approach. Data gathering included 8 months of observation and of in-depth interviews with students. Analysis revealed that…

Noting that existing research reveals considerable diversity among researchers' philosophical stances toward literature-based reading instruction versus traditional basal reading instruction, a study determined what effects literature-based instruction had on the reading achievement of fourth graders. Subjects, fourth-grade students of the John P.…

A study examined the relations among the diversity of the social groupings in which children participated in home literacy events and the social groupings, oral language, and literacy in first-grade literacy events. Subjects, 35 children in two first-grade classrooms in the same school district in a small city in the southeastern United States,…

Because a teacher who demonstrates a love of literature and reading is a valuable model for children, a study determined the knowledge of children's and adolescent literature of students enrolled in a graduate reading methods course. A questionnaire entitled "What's Your Literature Quotient?" was administered to 72 teachers concerning…

Interviews with children about their knowledge of a set of words was used to examine the concurrent validity of three paper-and-pencil measures of knowledge of these words--a standardized vocabulary test and two experimenter-designed tests. One experimenter-designed test, the Levels test, had three multiple-choice items per word that targeted…

A study investigated the relationships among prior topic knowledge, information in elementary science text, and the construction of visual representation of key text ideas. Eight preservice elementary teachers were first interviewed on two topics in science ("how plants get their food" and "air and weather"); then they read…

A study determined the interrelationships among children's storybook reading behavior and knowledge of print concepts in kindergarten and their reading ability at the end of first grade. A sample of 21 subjects, ranging in age from 5 years 10 months to 6 years 8 months, was randomly selected from the morning and afternoon kindergarten sessions at…

A study examined the effects of implicitly embedding short passages explicating information (etymological, analogical, or causal) within a given text on the learning of verbal information. Instructional materials were developed which used two different sequences, one control group receiving filler materials, and three groups receiving one of the…

This paper explores the educational role of newspapers in increasing participation in the presidential nomination process. Democratic caucus coverage in 9 daily Missouri newspapers (out of 44 dailies in the state) was examined for the inclusion of concrete, participatory information about the 1992 caucus. Newspapers published over a 5-day period…