The papers included this volume focus upon the reading problems faced by the child living in urban America. The scope of the papers encompasses such basic issues as "Social Variation in Language: Implications for Teaching Reading to Black Ghetto Children" and "The Training of Reading Teachers for the Disadvantaged." Other articles in this volume…

In his criticism of existing educational institutions, the author calls for a reform not only of educational institutions, but also of the underlying presumptions of society about the purpose and value of education in general. He explores alternatives to formal schooling, examines the assumption on which our system of universal compulsory…

A study conducted in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, elementary schools, the first schools to adopt the Initial Teaching Alphabet (i.t.a.) approach to teaching basic reading in this country, revealed that children who started with i.t.a. had significantly less reading failure than children with traditional orthography (T.O.) training. Although the i.t.a.…

A review of the literature about reading instruction for ethnically different students discloses a body of information largely disconnected and biased. Numerous factors are alleged to be determinants of the reading retardation of such students. Generally, these fall into two categories: racial factors in intelligence and cultural deprivation. The…

In South Carolina 235,420 children were served by Elementary Secondary Education Act Title I programs. The Fiscal Year 1975 allocation to South Carolina was 30,882,029 dollars. Reading activities were provided for 64 percent of Title I students, math programs for 48 percent, and dropout prevention activities for nine percent. The instructional…

This paper discusses the relationship between cloze demands and reading comprehension and describes a cloze program used in a third-grade classroom. A series of exercises, including word attack, sentence completion, and vocabulary-development tasks, were given regularly by teachers to the students in their third-grade classrooms. Included in the…

This report describes the evaluation plan for the 1973-74 small-scale field test of the Comprehension element of the Wisconsin Design for Reading Skill Development and presents results for the eight field test objectives investigated. These objectives, the first three grouped under the rubric product usability and the next five grouped under…

Teachers were asked to evaluate their competency to teach reading and to report on preservice and inservice programs in reading instruction. Since 1962, preservice programs have shifted from course-approved to competency-based teacher education. According to the teachers surveyed, college and university courses in reading were superior to other…

The word-identification approach has long been the basis for teaching reading in both native and second languages. Recent work has a new approach, particularly that of Frank Smith, who developed a feature analysis model of reading. As we can identify letters in different configurations or before all the strokes are completed, so can we identify…

The processes involved in learning to read and write are described and analyzed using a behavioral-engineering approach. A theoretical model of the learning process is presented and supported by discussions of learning as a discriminative process, of learning modalities, stimulus processing, and information processing during reading and writing.…

Chapters in this volume discuss the problems that teachers, parents, and librarians face in encouraging elementary school children to read and suggest ways to improve student motivation and reading ability in this age of mass media. "Sparking the Fuse for Literacy" defines the complex term "literacy," and examines the effects of the media on…

This paper examines some of the problems associated with unquestioned teaching practices and theories ("sacred cows") in the field of reading. Topics discussed include phonics, pronunciation, oral reading, teacher accountability and behavioral objectives, individualized reading, and the open classroom. (KS)

This elementary language text is designed for children in bilingual Inupiat-English programs in the Alaskan villages of Ambler, Kobuk, Kiana, Noorvik, and Shungnak. It contains twenty-two short passages entitled "Anchorage,""A New…

This first grade workbook is designed for children in bilingual Inupiat-English programs in the Alaskan villages of Ambler, Kiana, Kobuk, Noorvik, Selawik, and Shungnak. Each page has a captioned black-and-white drawing to be colored. (CFM)

This issue of "Epistle" contains articles viewing the work of reading professionals from four vantage points. Richard Allington assesses the value of doctoral programs from the perspective of a research trainer. Anthony Giordano presents a method for developing the independent thinking and problem-solving skills of preservice teachers. Rita…