This report describes a program for improving students' reading fluency in order to become more proficient readers. The targeted population consists of first and second grade students in a growing middle class community located in the Midwest. The lack of fluent reading was documented through teacher observation and the calculation of how many…

Providing one-to-one tutoring, five days per week, 30 minutes a day, by specially trained teachers, Reading Recovery is an early intervention program designed to assist children in first grade who are having difficulty learning to read and write. A program overview gives background information on different facets of the program. Illustrating the…

This position paper aims to clarify the International Reading Association's stance on methods for teaching beginning reading (i.e., reading methods). The paper first defines a reading method as a set of teaching and learning materials and/or activities often given a label, such as a phonics method, literature-based method, or language experience…

The study evaluates the influence of time devoted to reading-related classroom experiences on reading achievement for first grade children with lower versus higher IQ scores. Initially, it was anticipated that lower IQ children in classrooms with more time allocated to reading-related activities would make greater gains in word decoding skill than…

Reading while listening (RWL) is an instructional technique in which children associate unfamiliar written words with their corresponding familiar sounds. In RWL children listen to a text (often a "talking book" on audiotape or computer software) while following along in a printed version. A study examined the effect of RWL, with reader…

This study compares average SAT 9 reading scores of second through fifth grade English-only children in schools using "Open Court" (a program for teaching young children to read) with the scores of comparable schools using non-scripted programs in one very large urban school district in California. Findings show that schools using…

This book makes a scholarly contribution to the debate about standardized testing in American education by using the methods of discourse analysis to examine not only representative material from reading tests but also children's responses to it. The book is particularly attentive to the role of culture in shaping children's understanding of what…

Research indicates that parental involvement in activities that support academic areas is directly correlated with reading achievement and development. This study stresses the importance of reading aloud to your child, the connections between reading aloud at home and at school, the value of implementing hands-on literacy based activities that…

A recent analysis of Even Start, the federal family literacy program, has concluded that the relative emphasis in many local programs has shifted too far toward background issues of family functioning and too far away from focused efforts to enhance literacy skills (Haslam, 1998). In keeping with this analysis, the time seems to be right for a…

This paper asks how findings from emergent literacy (the study of the reading and writing behaviors that develop into conventional literacy) can combine with findings from oral language development to expand the services provided to preschoolers with language impairments. After giving an overview of major concepts and research of emergent…

A study explored how Retrospective Miscue Analysis (RMA) is successful, using discourse analysis of the questions and discussion strategies used during RMA. Seven readers with successful RMA sessions who represented several age/grade groups, ethnic groups, and linguistic backgrounds were chosen, and their discourse was analyzed over a period of 8…

An outline of some instructional principles by which reading instruction may be analyzed. (Author/HB)

Surveys and evaluates Title I elementary reading programs in North Carolina and offers some recommendations for improving the program. (DM)