This article describes a participatory action research (PAR) project conducted in a large urban, co-educational secondary school. The project focused on two senior pupils with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who, seemingly as a result of feeling stressed or anxious, displayed behaviours that inhibited communication. Using questionnaires,…

This study analyzed how one teacher used contemporary children's literature to supplement middle-grades geometry. The teacher's students were matched to students in other classes on general reading, general mathematics, and geometry. Student and teacher interviews, observation notes, and video tape recordings provided insights into fluency and…

Emphasizing the significance and delight of using storybooks as a means of entering the world of children, this book looks at the relationship between play and child development, the use of stories to foster genuine human relationships, and the creation of meaningful environments, curriculum, and materials derived from the themes and concepts…

This exploratory survey analyzes the toddler story time program at the Westerville Public Library (Ohio) for a 9-month period. One hundred thirty-five children between the ages of 24 and 36 months participated in the program with a parent or care giver. Each program was limited to 15 children with their parents and consisted of a 20-30 minute…

This paper examines children's preferences and understanding of stories and story elements by analyzing an extensive collection of art, writing, and teacher observations of one child, Virginia. The paper traces the progession of Virginia's understanding of character, setting, action/plot, and preference for fairy tale structures as evidenced in…

The focus of the articles in this theme issue of a journal for librarians and teachers working with young children is storytelling. The first article, "Observations on Storytelling," (K. Roberts) relates how storytelling can be essential to reading--if one observes the law of diminishing returns. The second article, "How to Turn a Story Hour Into…

Unproven beliefs about the process of reading and its instruction and about the effects of maturation and social structure on learning have obscured the question of what children know about how to read. An alternate conceptualization proposes that to learn to read children must obtain experience in three reading contexts: the use of print and its…

The development of a story grammar represents an attempt to describe the higher order cognitive structures that are used to encode, represent, and retrieve information from stories such as folktales or fables. These structures, defined as a set of rewrite rules, specify the types of information that should occur in stories and the types of logical…

Foreword to a series: "National Library Week, April 20-26.

Two experiments were conducted to evaluate children's retention of premise and inference information from short stories. Thirty-two low-socioeconomic status (SES) black and 25 middle-SES white children (all 4th graders) served as subjects. The children were read nine short stories, each comprised of two premise statements and a filler sentence.…

The teacher's guide presents two Cape Verdean folktales, background information, discussion questions, and activity suggestions for grades 4-6. The objective is to teach students about Cape Verde and its culture through folklore. The guide contains five sections. Section I offers a description of Cape Verdean folklore, describes five ways folklore…

A GROUP OF 14-YEAR-OLD GIRLS FROM WORKING CLASS HOMES WHO WERE RECOMMENDED BY THEIR SCHOOL COUNSELORS PARTICIPATED IN A STORY READING PROGRAM DESIGNED TO IMPROVE THE LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT OF DISADVANTAGED CHILDREN 1 1/2 TO 2 1/2 YEARS OLD. FOR 20 MINUTES A DAY, 5 DAYS A WEEK, FOR 8 MONTHS EACH GIRL MET WITH EACH OF HER FOUR PARTICULAR CHILDREN AND…

This reading textbook was designed for the elementary school Spanish-speaking student. It contains short passages which provide an initiation into knowledge of other countries and ways of life to encourage development of the senses of friendship, curiosity, and solidarity. See FL 004 069 for the accompanying workbook. (Author/SK)

The subjects were 72 black and 72 white second-grade children, with an equal number of boys and girls in each racial group. Two sets of the same twelve stories from one edition of a basal reader were used, one set featuring illustrations of white characters and the other black characters. Each child was read three story pairs by a white adult and…