Noting that use of the reading-related components of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) by state education agencies has ranged from extensive to moderate to limited, this paper presents case studies of the ways in which states have used the NAEP models. The first half of the paper describes extensive use by Minnesota and…

In developing critical reading, humor may contribute to three broad categories of skills: discerning the author's purpose, inferencing, and evaluating content. Passages from children's books such as "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing" or "The Great Brain" can help to illustrate the need for teachers and students to thoughtfully…

The reading/writing project described in this document examined the basic cognitive activities children engage in when reading and writing, involved 67 children from grades 3, 6, and 9, and addressed these questions: Since reading and writing both involve the development of meaning, is there a common language core, or routines, that children…

Developed to assist teachers of communication arts in the high school PREP (Preparation for Raising Educational Performance) summer classes, the 30 75-minute lessons in this first of two handbooks are designed to help ninth graders operating with below grade level reading skills (around the 5th-7th grade level) improve their reading comprehension.…

Developed to assist teachers of communication arts in the high school PREP (Preparation for Raising Education Performance) summer classes, the 30 75-minute lessons in this second of two handbooks are designed to help ninth graders operating with below grade level reading skills (around the 3rd-5th grade level) improve their reading comprehension.…

Psychological research has identified a number of cognitive processes and language abilities that are involved in the development of reading skills. This paper examines the ways in which research findings relate to current curriculum practices in such areas as learning letters and sounds; developing auditory perception skills; word recognition;…

Teachers working with a language experience approach to reading may use word-sorting activities as a means of exploring the letter/sound concepts and semantic concepts that children are forming. Using words that are already in a child's reading vocabulary, words that the child has made into sight vocabulary, and words that the child has requested…

This paper examines the relationship between strategies for recall of verbal material and the reading ability of 10-to-13-year-old children. Sixty-five fifth and sixth graders, whose reading levels were determined by the Gates-MacGinitie Comprehension Test (1964), were given an orally presented word-string repetition task. While performance on…

Children will meet one less obstacle to making the transition from spoken to written fluency in language if, during the transition period, they experience written language that corresponds structurally to their spoken language patterns. Familiar children's folksongs, because they contain some of the structure of children's oral language, provide…

A 2 x 3 factorial design was employed to assess the efficacy of peer teaching and token reward contingencies (contingent tokens, noncontingent "yoked" tokens, and no tokens) in a remedial reading program. The relationship between on-task performance and reading improvement was also assessed. Forty-two fourth grade to sixth grade rural Appalachian…

Two readability formulas were applied to two math and two reading series textbooks at the fourth, fifth, and sixth grade levels to see whether the publishers' suggested reading levels were accurate. Five samples were taken from each text and compared to the publishers' suggested usage according to grade level. Results showed that although formulas…

As this report explains, the Exemplary Center for Reading Instruction (ECRI) has developed a reading program that teaches 16 skills involved in reading, spelling, listening, thinking, and writing. Daily records are kept of each child's progress. This report shows how the ECRI program can be adapted for use with a basal text. It provides detailed,…

The six authors of this monograph draw from their experience in elementary education in proposing practical techniques for using literature to teach a variety of literacy skills to children. The following topics are developed individually: reading for learning about the nature of language, picture books for reading vocabulary, the trade book as an…

This document proposes integrating multi-ethnic education and reading education in order to reach their combined basic goals, ethnic literacy and pluralistic socialization. Three guidelines are offered to assist in this integration process. First, reading materials and instruction should reflect the ethnic diversity of the United States. This goal…

This report is an educational guide for parents of young children with reading problems. It explains the prereading skills, such as sitting quietly, paying attention, and listening, that must be mastered before a child can learn to read and then describes nine approaches used by public schools for teaching reading. The report offers practical ways…