Offers student-centered reading activities designed to bring students to reading maturity and involvement in literature. Discusses partner reading, dramatizing and performing texts, transforming texts, journal writing, discussion, and writing. (PRA)

Studies children from three first grade Chapter 1 classrooms to determine whether the use of recorded books as a supplement to a basal reader program would make a significant difference between reading pretest and posttest scores. Finds that students' test scores in word attack skills, vocabulary, comprehension, and oral reading skills improved.…

Describes a year-long project in a first-grade class that established parallel literacy practices at home and in school, including reading books and writing dialog journals. (SR)

Provides a case study of one Chinese boy's experience learning to read in Great Britain. Compares the formal didactic approach of the Chinese school with the developmental approach of the English reception school. Shows how many contributory factors influence student learning and argues for fuller appreciation of this fact. (HB)

Asserts that writing conferences are the heart of teaching writing. Describes use of picture books and writer's circles to improve student reading and writing skills. Reports that students became more confident in analyzing writing genres and more able to write complex narratives. (CFR)

Describes how Head Start teachers can support children's emergent literacy by improving their classroom environment. Includes suggestions for designing the floor plan, enriching the print environment within each learning center, and making the literacy center the classroom's focal point. (KB)

Looks at how standards in some form predominate the current landscape of education. Argues that standards pose little threat to teacher autonomy, but that teachers should find what is useful in the standards movement and merge that into what works in the classroom. Argues that educators must join the greater debate about education. (SR)

Investigates why children are attracted to scary books, and what they find scary. Addresses children's fears through scary books and the instructional value of scary books. Discusses successful classroom experiences with scary books and notes selection considerations. Offers literature study ideas and a 100-item bibliography of scary books. (SR)

Reflects on how the author's third-grade students, experienced in literary conversation from their reading workshop, transferred the practice of literary conversation to their writing workshop. (SR)

Considers the relationship between decoding and sight-word reading. Investigates whether to use the whole-word method or to build decoding skills before introducing sight words. Sets up five goals to address these issues. Concludes that sight-word reading instruction is likely to be successful if decoding skills are firmly established first. (SC)

Schools' treatment of diversity categorizes students and applies ineffectual learning methods to resulting stereotypes. The author's study of basal readers showed that today's multiculturalism suppresses most white immigrant groups' stories, omits references to first discoveries and inventions, and substitutes foreign expressions for literate…

Outlines findings from a pilot project by the Centre for Research on Literacy and the Media (England) in which primary school pupils adapted a text from a print into a moving image medium (animation). Examines the impact of this translation on pupils' print literacy. Suggests that informed practical use of media can have benefits for the pupils'…

Describes the collaboration between a seventh-grade English class of unmotivated readers and a group of reading methods students at a nearby university. Discusses how both classes read Carolyn Meyer's "Rio Grande Stories," wrote to each other as pen pals, made a quilt together, visited the university class, and enjoyed a visit from Meyer. (SR)

In response to a recent shift toward informal measures of teaching/assessment in reading education, this study investigated types of assessments and instructional strategies being taught in teacher education programs in five midwestern states. Surveys of reading education professors at state universities indicated that direct, informed assessment…

Describes introducing and constructing portfolios in a second-grade classroom. Discusses preparation, diagnosis, the collection and sorting process, goal setting, reflection, and student sharing. Shows how diagnostic reflective-learning portfolios help children become aware of their own learning strategies, construct and reflect on goals, and…