Noting that while the language experience approach to reading instruction assumes that the learner is intuitively familiar with the language and that this familiarity facilitates recognition of the language on the printed page, this paper argues that students learning to read in a second language do not have the same degree of intuitive…

The purpose of this handbook is to provide assistance to kindergarten through grade two classroom teachers in assessing student needs and implementing strategies to increase student achievement and mastery of the basic skills in the language arts. The first part of the handbook presents the underlying considerations in determining appropriate…

Reflecting the interdisciplinary emphasis that reading comprehension has received during the past decade, the articles in this volume deal with both the processes involved in reading and the instructional practices used in teaching it. The six articles devoted to reading processes deal specifically with the following topics: schemata,…

A study examined the efficacy of using various types of worksheets (representative of those typically used in instruction) that had been specifically designed to elicit differing achievement effects and to promote cognitive processing at the semantic level. Fifth grade students from five classrooms were divided into groups of high, middle, and low…

Children can acquire written language skills and abilities through the natural process by which they acquire oral language. If as infants, toddlers, and preschoolers, children are exposed to rich print environments, they transfer assumptions from experiences with oral dialogue to the more focused situations of print. Discrepancies in the ease with…

Intended for reading teachers and others involved in the testing or placement of students, this paper describes the development and evaluation of a prescribed individualized reading program. Following an introduction to the program (which allows students to progress through each reading level at their own pace), the second and third sections of…

This paper provides annotations of journal articles and books concerned with reading instruction for English as-a-second-language students. The annotations are arranged into five categories: (1) the need for teaching English as a second language (ESL) to non-English speaking natives with varied backgrounds and wide ranges of ability levels, (2)…

The study investigated three models--the traditional classroom reading instructional model, a one to one tutorial model, and a reading resource center model--for providing reading instruction to 110 disadvantaged inner city children in junior high school educable mentally retarded (EMR) classes. The effectiveness of programmed instructional…

Staff development programs can help Catholic educators deal with critical problems now facing them. Parochial school teachers must become better able to prepare students to address difficult issues like dwindling resources or eroding morals. They must be given a knowledge of current theories of teaching and learning such as those of Piaget or…

Current reading theory suggests that oral language skills and reading skills interact with and implement each other. Three guidelines are helpful in shaping the development of proficient readers. (1) From kindergarten on, each year should be spent moving from oral language to print. Furthermore, the move within oral language should be from…

This primary level reader developed for use in a bilingual education setting contains six legends in the Creek Indian language. Each legend is presented in large type and is illustrated by pen-and-ink drawings suitable for coloring. (AMH

The relationship between first graders' listening comprehension and reading comprehension was examined in a study involving 64 children. Two forms of the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test, Primary A, were administered--one orally and one silently. No significant difference was found between the mean score of the silent test and that of the oral test.…

Aptitude-treatment interaction (ATI) methodology was used to assess the effectiveness of secondary teacher inservice training in reading instruction and to test the hypothesis that low-ability secondary students benefit most from directive teaching. For the first part of the study, 39 teachers were placed into two groups. One group received…

Tidewater Community College has developed a reading program which responds to the various needs and skills of all students at a school with an inclusive admissions policy. The Tidewater model defines six categories of student reading ability: remedial (below tenth grade level), adapted (below tenth who work to capacity but are slow learners),…

The articles in this publication look at how tests can be used to improve the quality of reading instruction and more generally at what excellence in a reading program means. Among the topics are: changes in the reading assessment prepared by the National Assessment of Educational Progress; a discussion of the limitations and possibilities of…