A study investigated the phenomenon "response to literature" through the window of language to determine how different researchers assigned meaning to this central concept in twentieth century research. The benchmark conceptions of the terms "literature" and "response" (with which the research conceptions could be…

A study examined the effectiveness of IBM's (International Business Machines') "Writing to Read" (WTR) program in teaching kindergartners and first graders to read. Scores of 257 kindergarten students (enrolled in 2 experimental and 2 control schools) on the California Achievement Test were used to determine if the WTR program was more…

A study tested the hypothesis that students who were required to read a book of their choice for 15 minutes per night would have a more positive attitude toward reading than similar students who did not have that assignment. The Estes Attitude Scale for reading was given to two classes (high group and low group) of sixth graders in central…

A case study of Alonzo A. illustrates the danger of a monocultural approach to education and provides a living example of the impact of marginalization and alienation on the lives of persons of color. Born in Mexico and raised by grandparents in California, Alonzo dropped out of school in the eighth grade and joined a gang. He was a heroin addict…

A study compared types of activities associated with the Newspaper in Education (NIE) program with current newspaper reading habits through a survey of 263 respondents under the age of 40 who took part in an NIE program during their school days. Results of the telephone survey indicated that participation in NIE and length of participation were…

A study explored emergent readers' reconstruction of two story text types for evidence of cohesive harmony. Data came from a subset of 12 kindergarten children in 2 classes in an inner-city school. All of the children participated in a storybook reading program in which two types of texts were used: simple, beginning reader text and complex, trade…

This book presents 5 working papers which were produced in the course of a study undertaken in 1991 to obtain information on how the 92 universities, polytechnics and colleges in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland which offer initial teacher training courses prepare students to teach reading in primary and secondary schools. The five papers are:…

This study examined a social-organizational hypothesis that explains how silent reading in small-group lessons might influence students' learning. One hundred children in four third-grade classes, each divided into three ability groups, received two silent and two oral reading lessons. Group dynamics were measured from videotapes of the lessons.…

A study examined the effectiveness of the Reading Recovery Pilot program of the school district of the city of Saginaw, Michigan. Thirty-five of the original 55 students in the program were successfully discontinued from the program--they read with a 90% or greater level of accuracy materials being used in the classroom and use the kinds of…

A study compared the effects of a modified whole language approach with those obtained from a pure whole language approach on the decoding abilities of 20 kindergartners, assessed using Darrell Morris's Early Reading Screening Instrument. Subjects were selected from two similarly composed schools located in Albemarle County, Virginia. Ten students…

A study examined two methods of reading instruction, the whole language literature-based approach and the traditional basal approach. Eighty teachers from four diverse school districts in two midwestern states were surveyed to find out which method was the most widely used. Results indicated that 84% of the 50 teachers who responded used a…

A study examined whether exposing children via reading and discussing books in which the main characters are depicted in a non-sexist manner would have any effect upon the degree of gender stereotyping expressed by the children. Eighteen third-grade children at a suburban elementary school in New Jersey completed a pretest to determine the degree…

A study was conducted to determine whether or not a child who is older when entering school performs better on reading readiness and achievement tests than a younger child. Two samples of second grade students from a middle class community in Bloomfield, New Jersey, were established by examining the ages of all the children in the cohort. Sample A…

A study determined whether reading aloud to children before entering school would influence their reading grade level as determined by their report card grade. Subjects, 85 first-grade children in a suburban school district in central New Jersey, took surveys home to be completed by parents. Results indicated that: (1) those children who were read…

A review of research on the effects of whole language suggests that no one approach to teaching reading is distinctly better in all situations and respects than other methods. The whole language approach has been described as a "top-down" theory of reading which emphasizes the importance of teaching language as a whole entity as…