This chapter examines how the study of popular romantic fiction was used to transform students' understandings of the ways in which gendered identities are constructed and their perception of the way textual meanings are determined.

The authors present results of a generalizability study of running record assessment. They conducted 2 decision studies to ascertain the number of raters and passages necessary to obtain a reliable estimate of a student's reading ability on the basis of a running record assessment. Ten teachers completed running record assessments of 10…

Serving as a source of questions for researchers to investigate and a resource for professors and their students, this book presents 51 essays that discuss where the reading field has been, is now, and might be going. More than 80% of the essays are new or revised from the third edition. Essays in the book include "Professional Connections:…

This book offers successful classroom practices that encourage students to learn purposefully and constructively by reflecting on their own learning processes and by making connections between what they read (whether verbal or visual texts) and the lives they lead. Extending from middle and high school through college composition and English…

Intended to offer an introduction to some major themes in literacy education, this book aims to inform discussions while assisting teachers to reflect on their work as literacy teachers. The book covers work with students in the full range of schooling and in a number of different subject areas. The book's topics include the nature and use of…

This essay explores the roots and implications of stance, which helps examine the daily practice of educating new teachers. Stance is about the positioning involved in teaching. It depends on a postmodern view of reality as being situational and interpreted, rather than fixed and predefined. In literacy education, a reader's relationship to text…

A study compared the average reading ability levels of freshmen enrolled at an open-door community college with the readability levels of eight content area textbooks used in courses at the institution. Subjects, 100 students enrolled in reading courses, were randomly selected and administered the Nelson-Denny Reading Test to determine reading…

Social studies and language arts teachers can enliven and enrich history studies through personalization. This approach can empower children to see history itself as having a spirit as well as a body. Reading and writing activities should allow students to see history as the kind of study that opens the individual up to different visions. Children…

Literacy materials are either for illiterate people or for neoliterate people (those who have attained limited literacy but might easily relapse if they do not practice reading with appropriate materials). Thirty-five kinds of prototype materials for neoliterate persons have been developed by the Asian/Pacific Joint Production Programme of…

The six articles in this focused journal issue are concerned with literature teaching on the secondary and college level. The titles and authors of the articles are as follows: (1) "Aesthetic Reading and Teaching: 'Candide' Revisited" (Michael G. Gauthier); (2) "Discovery: The Role of Subjective Response in Initiating the Literature…

Presents effective methods for the discussion, sharpening, and enrichment of readers' responses. Includes methods to teach students how to choose a good book, an individualized and/or group reading and response program, and journal writing techniques. Provides a bibliography of Canadian children's literature for intermediate grades. (MM)

Outlines five variations of the Directed Reading Thinking Activity that can help students become independent readers of narrative text. (NKA)

Suggests that while teachers may wish to guide students in their reading of literature--to give them only "good" literature and to help them see the "right" interpretations of it--such guidance leaves students' understanding to chance, and does not help them choose to think and construct values of their own. (JC)

Argues that comprehension is a problem-solving activity and that different problem-solving schemata exist for different types of texts, both narrative and expository. Suggests that good comprehension occurs when there is a match between the author's schemata and that of the reader, creating a dialogue between the writer and the reader. (JK)

Suggests that both boys and girls are interested in sports and recreation. Describes activities which utilize the topic of sports to highlight diverse vocabulary terms, encourage playing with language, and develop listening and writing skills. Provides an annotated bibliography of sports books for children. (ARH)