Recommends using drama in the reading classroom, and offers suggestions for selecting stories, using puppets, and creating sets. (PRA)

Provides a theoretical description of attitude acquisition, an overview of the nature of attitude (including factors influencing attitude development), and suggestions for addressing attitude in designing reading instruction. Describes several informal assessments. Suggests teacher behaviors for developing and maintaining positive attitudes. (PRA)

Offers a brief narrative indicating that English-speaking teachers have many useful things to learn about teaching reading around the world. Lists future topics for this column. (SR)

Describes the Reader's Workshop and the Focused Study Reading Workshop. Offers them as a way to accommodate the characteristics of individuals, to respect the knowledge of readers who are at earlier stages of reading development, to establish a system which teaches problem solving, and to provide for active child involvement and ownership in the…

Offers an answer from Marie Clay and Barbara Watson concerning training for the Reading Recovery program. Provides a list of training sites available for interested readers. (MG)

Explores four misconceptions about the whole-language approach and attempts to replace them by grounded realities associated with whole language. (MG)

Shares an observation guide, created by the author, for supervisors and administrators to use to assist teachers who are working toward an integrated reading/language arts program. (MG)

Considers the effect that students' health status and the health conditions of the classroom might have on reading achievement. Provides a quick checklist by which teachers can measure these conditions. (HB)

After reading a brief summary of the transactional strategies approach and watching 2 videotapes of its implementation in the classroom, 30 elementary school teachers were asked about their perceptions of this educational strategy. Teachers' first impressions of the transactional strategies approach were positive, although they expressed a few…

Describes the "Bag Game," an activity which keeps kindergartners or first graders absorbed and entertained while heightening their awareness of initial consonant phonemes in spoken words. (SR)

Several phonological manipulation skills were taught to 35 Head Start preschool children and the degree to which learning 1 of these skills resulted in improved skill performance and learning of a second skill was studied. Results imply that the class of phonological manipulation skills does not have a simple structure. (SLD)

Considers the current debates regarding the teaching of reading. Outlines the general failure to understand the nature of literacy, the complexity of educational issues, and the lack of public language for discussing such issues. Provides an accessible explanation of current reading methods for parents. (HB)

Describes an author's card game that celebrates authors and children's literature, in which students choose the authors and construct cards containing titles and simple illustrations. (SR)

Discusses numerous valuable resources on the Internet that are useful for teaching reading, including sites with: information on science and history; all of Grimm's fairy tales; and "Alice in Wonderland." Notes good search engines and several exciting literacy-related sites. (SR)

Discusses textbooks and the myth of the homogeneous classroom, differentiated reading assignments (DRAs), locating sources for DRAs, evaluating appropriateness of reading sources, collecting and organizing DRA sources, creating individualized student assignments, providing content exposure for students who cannot read available materials, and…