Describes theoretical and practical problems facing the field of early reading, examining: readers and texts (reader processes, text difficulty, linguistic and cultural knowledge, and unique learners); home and school (home-school match, communities and reading, preschools as contexts for reading acquisition, and best practices); and policy and…

Using a reading lesson designed for advanced university students in Brazil, the author discusses different types of exercises that can help students become more active readers and be more critical about the reading materials. The author distinguishes between passive and active reading tasks and argues that active tasks are more beneficial because…

A desire to encourage preservice teachers to respond personally and critically to literature created the tensions that led to the curricular explorations discussed in this article. First is a description of the course context, the curricular, and theoretical frame for inquiry through literature. In particular, the use of a broad theme, Journeys,…

In this study we examined how good and weak students of literature interact with short literary stories. We focused on differences in the use of cognitive and affective reading activities, and in the extent to which good and weak students adapt their activities to (parts of) the story they are reading. 19 Dutch tenth-grade students from 8 classes…

This study evaluated the use of children's literature presented via one of three conditions: an adult reading a book to the child; the child reading a CD-ROM version of a book on the computer but without animation; and the child reading the book on the computer with high levels of animation. The study, in one primary grade classroom, involved 10…

Reading journals can help college readers successfully meet the demands of complex and sophisticated texts when students use them as a strategy for making meaning rather than simply extracting information. There are three primary reasons for using reading journals at the college level: (1) writing is a way of discovering when students are free to…

A case study examined the effects of primary trait scoring on evaluating seventh grade students' compositions. Primary trait scoring as used in the Metropolitan School District of Washington Township in Indianapolis is innovative in that (1) the scoring guide is assignment specific, written after adult raters read and discussed many papers; (2)…

Children are faced with an increased potential for academic failure due to less stable family lives and career-oriented parents. Cross-cultural reading instruction practices and programs can provide insights that could prevent such failure for children at-risk. One such program is the reading maintenance program used in Denmark, wherein groups of…

Discusses the failure of Joe Bob Briggs' parody of "We Are the World" in terms of the development of the communal sense that creates a set of group norms, which in turn create "phantom constraints" of which the parody's author may not be aware.(NKA)

Presents and assesses a program to improve historical knowledge and relationships of junior high students through a language arts program based on children's historical fiction. (SD)

The Communication Theory and Method Division section of the proceedings contains the following 16 papers: "Profiling TV Ratings Users: Content-Based Advisories and Their Adoption" (Robert Abelman and David Atkin); "It's All About the Information: Salience Effects on the Perceptions of News Exemplification" (Francesca R. Dillman…

Describes the One-Third Report method for motivating reluctant students to read and write: the teacher reads aloud a portion of a story; the class brainstorms endings; students read one-third of assignments, then write about what they need to know or hypothesize endings, which motivates them to finish the story. Includes sample One-Third Report.…

Describes "reader response" teaching techniques to enhance young children's critical thinking skills, build a sound literacy foundation, and clarify the relationship between reading and writing. Provides examples of response logs/journal entries, aesthetic responses such as drawings and dramatic reenactments, and student discussions…

This year-long case study examines how a struggling reader in a sixth-grade social studies class, a seventh grade mathematics class, and an eighth grade science class "transacted" with the reading task demands of her specific classroom. Through regular classroom observations and interviews, the researcher documents how each student responded to…

In order to probe the relationship between reading strategies and comprehension monitoring strategies and how they function to help readers in comprehension process, the present study utilizes think-aloud and retrospective verbal reports to examine 20 EFL readers' performances in reading texts. The results reveal that the engagement of reading…