Investigates elementary school teachers' beliefs and classroom practices about reading. Describes how three of the teachers experimented with new language, beliefs, and/or practices, juxtaposing them with current beliefs and practices. Considers how, at the end of two years, two teachers had altered their beliefs and transformed their practices,…

Investigates how culture might influence the choice and reading of children's texts to children. Describes a two-year, longitudinal, qualitative case study of the storybook experiences of a US-born Chinese girl, describing the social, moral, and literacy practices in her family (which included the girl, her parents, and her grandparents). (SR)

Argues that the International Reading Association (IRA) has an important and key role to play in the current volatile United States government policy environment. Looks at perceptions of literacy failure. Discusses the Association's involvement with the Reading Excellence Act, and outlines what the Association must continue to do to assure that…

Examines the real-world literacy contexts in which children find themselves. Discusses research at multiple sites over five years looking at how teachers struggle day by day to work out how to acknowledge and build on the language and cultural diversity of the students in their schools. Explores and illustrates four distinct "constructions" of…

Presents case studies of two struggling reader/writers who found a "way in" to the world of literacy through nonnarrative texts. Argues for greater attention to nonnarrative in early literacy education. (SR)

Reviews the methods, technologies, and operating tenets of case studies of reading disabilities completed during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Results suggest that the assumptions of anatomical and functional modularity for cortical processes become guiding principles for diagnosing and correcting reading difficulties. (Author/CR)

Explores vocabulary-learning opportunities in a seventh-grade literature-based reading program. Discusses how this program supported vocabulary teaching and learning both explicitly and implicitly, and shows how varying classroom configurations expanded learners' word knowledge and enhanced their word-learning abilities. (SR)

Reports on the long-term development, implementation, and assessment of a framework for beginning reading instruction (the Four Blocks Approach). Describes the framework and how it divides times fairly evenly between the four major historical approaches to reading instruction. Shows that the framework is very successful with children of a wide…

Describes a research project investigating whether at-risk kindergarten children's emergent literacy would improve if their parents were instructed on the importance of reading aloud to their kindergarten children and given books to read aloud to them on a daily basis. Notes limitations. Finds no significant differences on emergent literacy tests…

Presents a research-based, classroom tested assessment tool, the Classroom Fluency Snapshot (CFS). Presents the case of one classroom in which a teacher uses the CFS as a pre- and post-assessment. Shares rich classroom examples, details of the teacher's interpretation, and instructional decision making along with ideas for instruction. (SG)

Investigates the possibilities that a reader response approach offered strong female characters to four middle school girls reading and talking about two young adult novels. Examines issues involved in negotiating meaning in such literature discussions, including real talk, "inappropriate" talk, preferences in group talk, and privileged talk.…

Studies influences of rereading and strategy use on college students' abilities to understand/remember text information, hypothesizing that those engaging in active strategy use should perform better than those who do not. Indicates no differences between groups on the recognition task, but finds differences on the recall task. Discusses time on…

Reviews investigations related to word learning of learning disabled students. Finds that direct word study leads to reading improvement for learning disabled pupils, but that indirect instruction also provides assistance. Finds also that word knowledge instruction not only promotes word learning, but can heighten learning disabled students'…

Explores the consequences of schooling on identity and achievement through the author's son's involvement in four different social situations; storybook encounters at home in early childhood, a first grade classroom with abundant freedom, a second grade classroom with an impoverished curriculum, and third and fourth grade classrooms at a public…

Reviews the evolution of relevant research in both response to literature and in the enactment of response-based practices in classrooms. Examines research on text, readers, and contexts. Examines research exploring how readers construct texts as cultural worlds, construct identities through participation in worlds, and share responses through…