Presenting the positive role phonics can play in a student's ability to learn to read, this book emphasizes that phonics can be extremely beneficial when it is integrated as a part of a balanced reading program. Based on the author's real-world experience, the book covers the entire range of practical phonics applications for the elementary…

In a few urban elementary schools, in-depth, literature-based discussions are taking place under the Junior Great Books Program. For years, Junior Great Books has been a program available to limited numbers of students in special settings. Beginning in 1993, funding from the Ameritech Foundation allowed the Great Books Foundation to support the…

This paper discusses and recommends diagnosis and remediation procedures in teaching pupils in the area of reading. The first section of the paper addresses diagnostic emphasis in reading and discusses individualized reading, experience charts, and 5 recommendations for teaching phonics. The next section discusses basal readers, argues that good…

This document presents the transcript of Congressional hearings to gather information as to why children cannot read. Current federal programs were reviewed as well. After opening statements of the Hon. Bill Goodling and the Hon. Tim Roemer, the transcript for the hearing held on July 10, 1997 on why children cannot read includes the texts of oral…

The period from kindergarten through second grade is a critical time for developing basic reading skills. This report focuses primarily on assessment of reading in early elementary school. The report discusses what is known about making assessment meaningful and describes what the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) states are doing about…

This study used data from the 1998 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading examination to analyze the effect of class size on academic achievement. The NAEP is administered in 4th, 8th, and 12 grades to measure academic achievement in various fields. Besides providing data on academics, it offers information on student, teacher,…

Much of the school choice debate today is centered on charter schools, which are similar to private schools in that they operate outside the bureaucracy of the public school system and have some level of autonomy in their organization and curriculum delivery. Many charter schools serve specific religious, ethnic, or demographic needs. Parents and…

This study's purpose was to determine if the amount of time spent reading independently at home and at school correlated with oral reading fluency and comprehension. Fifteen heterogeneously grouped second graders logged the amount of minutes they read independently over a 12-week period. The students were pre- and post-tested using the Woodcock…

This document discusses the measurement of reading ability and the readability of books by application of the Lexile framework. It begins by stating the importance of uniform measures. It then discusses the history of reading ability testing, based on the assumption that no researcher has been able to measure more than one kind of reading ability.…

A pilot study evaluated the instructional effectiveness of "Collections, a Harcourt Reading/Language Arts" program. A total of 40 primary-grade teachers in 4 different school districts in Texas volunteered to participate. Teachers selected two themes to pilot during a 9- to 12-week period and received training in implementing the…

The Illinois Reading Assessment Framework is designed to assist educators, test developers, policy makers, and the public by clearly defining those elements of the Illinois Learning Standards that are suitable for state testing. It is not designed to replace a local reading curriculum and should not be considered a state reading curriculum. The…

The purpose of this study was to compare the achievement of students in 14 Pascagoula schools and 9 Biloxi schools implementing School Renaissance (SR) to those of students in matched Control schools. The achievement measures to be examined were from the 2003 administration of the Mississippi Curriculum Test (MCT) for Reading, Language Arts, and…

Reports a study indicating that an informal program of training in visual perception was equivalent to a formal program both in producing better results on a visual perception measure and on a reading achievement test. (TO)

The results of this study question the usefulness of the Draw-A-Man Test as a measure of intelligence for the bilingual child. (TO)

No longer will New York City elementary school children be promoted to the next grade, even though they are known to be over two years behind grade level in reading. (Author)