Developed by classroom teachers during the development phase of Minnesota's Graduation Standards, this performance package is made up of locally designed assignments that, taken together, show whether a student has learned and can apply the knowledge and skills related to reading and applying technical information from a variety of English…

Teaching medical English presupposes knowledge about its vocabulary composition. the role of Latin (and also Greek) elements in the vocabulary can be shown through statistical methods. English medical vocabulary appears to contain two kinds of Latin vocabulary elements: words of Latin origin in the general vocabulary of English and words and terms…

This research presents the results of a 10-week qualitative case study that followed the journey of a limited literacy, grade six student as he progressed through a 10-week, one-on-one intensive literacy intervention. A limited literacy student is defined as a student, who has been identified as functioning two or more years behind their peers in…

This report intends to describe a program designed to enhance reading comprehension. Reading comprehension relies on skills that enable students to remember facts, draw out main ideas, make inferences, and relate reading to personal experiences. The focus group consisted of middle and high school students in a metropolitan area in northern…

These four newsletters focus on issues related to adult basic education and the challenges faced when teaching adult learners. The first issue looks at the characteristics of learning disabilities, providing information to help teachers determine whether a learner has a learning disability and who might be appropriately referred for testing. The…

Three significant changes have impacted the teaching of social studies to young adolescents in the past decade: (1) development of the curriculum standards for social studies by the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS); (2) growth in the number of middle schools, which are premised on the integration of content; and (3) expansive use of…

This report describes a program for increasing student comprehension of nonfiction text by incorporating picture books into the social science curriculum, teaching students to use text elements, to generate questions about the content, and to make connections while reading. The targeted population consisted of fifth grade students in a…

Generally speaking, reading is not taught beyond the third grade in most school systems. If a student has not mastered reading comprehension skills by the fourth grade, chances are that she/he will struggle with learning in grades four through twelve. Many middle school and high school students lack the ability to use communication skills…

This report provides policymakers, educators, parents, and the community with a general accounting and a concise overview of the performance of Colorado's third, fourth, and seventh grade students relative to the State Model Content Standards in third grade Reading Comprehension, fourth grade Reading and Writing, and seventh grade Reading and…

This report describes a program for advancing at-risk students' reading comprehension, which was adversely affecting their academic progress. The targeted population consisted of elementary students in a middle class community located near a large midwestern city. The problem with reading comprehension was documented through teaching referrals,…

Software designed to promote the use of open-ended investigations in science education was evaluated in a study of whether using case-based simulation enhances students' understanding of ethical issues and data interpretation in science. The software was a DNA gel electrophoresis simulation that enabled students to conduct simulated genetic tests.…

This practicum was designed to use directed reading thinking activity strategies to teach reading comprehension skills to middle grades language arts students who frequently failed to make passing scores in reading comprehension exercises. The program included three specific strategies. The first strategy was to teach the students higher-order…

This collection of brief articles, targeting middle school educators, features ideas for reading improvement. The following articles are included: "Special Ed Students Should Read and Re-read for Fluency"; "Collaboration between Special Education and Regular Education: What It Is and How We Make It Work" (Deborah LeGrande);…

This study described how a fifth grade reading and writing class utilized short stories to comprehend how authors used eight different writing techniques in their own writing. The researcher found that when the fifth grade students comprehended how to use a writing technique they were able to apply it to their own personal, expressive writing. The…

This paper describes development of a bank of interventions in response to individual student needs identified by Student Study Teams (SSTs) in the Horry County (South Carolina) school district. It also describes the training of SST members in the selection, application, and monitoring of each intervention. Following a survey that identified basic…