Explains how teachers at Ramirez Elementary School in Lubbock (Texas) use thematic teaching to make connections across subject areas and to provide students with rich literacy instruction. Describes how these teachers implement social studies content to enhance their students' reading, writing, and thinking skills. Illustrates the power of…

Describes the use of computer pen pals to offer foreign language students who are at different levels of instruction to participate in activities that involve real life situations. Designed to develop writing skills, these activities help students review vocabulary and to practice verb forms and grammatical structures. (Author/VWL)

Discusses development of an integrated peer writing assistant program. Student feedback indicates out-of-class peer review is beneficial to them. Writing assistants reported their skills also improved from working with their peers. Offers suggestions for development, coordination, implementation, and integration of a successful peer writing…

Introduces the special issue on children's writing which contains seven articles that offer analytic portraits of the teaching and learning of writing from prekindergarten through seventh grade. Highlights the collective themes of a social perspective on writing, of children's diverse resources, and of the links between those resources and…

Examined the effects of first-graders' writing competency when using computers compared to writing by hand. Found that students demonstrated significant differences favoring computer use over handwriting, including more words and sentences and greater writing competence, despite no differences observed in off-task behavior. (JPB)

This study presents and tests a hypothesized structural model that attempts to explain the relationship of writing in English as a foreign language by Taiwanese university students to a variety of factors. Investigated were factors considered to be inhibiting (writing apprehension and writer's block), factors considered to be facilitative (free…

Despite multiple and persuasive arguments against the validity of doing so, many basic writers continue to be identified by what Brian V. Street calls the "autonomous model of literacy," a model that research tells us is as artificial and inappropriate as it is ubiquitous. This article describes a curricular response to the political,…

This case study describes Jason, a child with an autism spectrum disorder and hyperlexia. Hyperlexia is a condition characterized by precocious single-word recognition skills and weaker comprehension skills. Jason demonstrated advanced writing skills and a strong general preference for learning materials presented visually rather than orally. His…

An important goal in preventing writing disabilities is to provide effective early instruction to at-risk students to maximize their writing development. This study examined whether or not explicitly teaching six at-risk second-grade writers, including children with disabilities, how to plan and draft stories would improve their story writing as…

The inquiry science process provides a perfect opportunity for students to practice relational meaning in language. As students design their experiments, negotiate their ideas with peers, and share their data and conclusions, they sharpen both their reading and written communication skills. This process needs to be mediated by having the teacher…

Writing is an integral part of science. The growth of scientific knowledge depends on scientists' ability to record their thoughts and discoveries for future scientists to build on. Everyday literacy is the basis of scientific literacy. In addition, writing about science helps students learn science. In order to transfer science concepts from what…

Writing--and lots of it in all genres--is at the heart of the language arts curriculum and the skills of critical thinking that students need to develop to become prepared consumers and citizens. In this article, the author reflects on her growth as a writer and teacher, and offers an overview of what people know about writing, what they need to…

Although young adult literature is often recommended as a reading bridge to the classics, Stallworth insists that the genre deserves a prominent place in the middle school canon in its own right. She describes several examples from middle school classrooms of how young adult novels can enhance tweens' "life literacy" by both helping them develop…

This article describes a research study exploring the question: What influence will reading and discussing traditional literature have upon students' narrative writing? The setting for the study was a fifth grade classroom that was part of a university laboratory school. Students listened to and discussed Native American folktales and then wrote…

The ability to read and write for a variety of purposes is essential to success in school and in contemporary society. The purpose of this investigation was to conduct an exhaustive review of the literature and a meta-analysis of literacy research in the field of deaf education. Computer and manual searches of 40 years of peer-reviewed journal…