Sums up new integrated approaches to teaching reading that are needed to help troubled college readers cope with advanced academic material. Presents two case studies that show how these approaches can work with very different at-risk students. (RS)

This case study examined the reading and writing progress of a first grade boy. Predictions that the boy would have learning difficulties were based on data from tests, expert assessments, reading and writing samples, and school instruction. Progress in first grade reading indicated that there was no relationship between test results and the…

Examined nine measures of short-term memory (STM) used by school psychologists with group of learning-disabled (n=48) and educable mentally retarded (n=34) special education students. Results indicated that not all STM tasks were significant predictors of reading. Sentence memory task was best predictor for learning-disabled students; letter…

Reviewed academic records for students who attended public school, completing secondary education between 1982 and 1986. Students who experienced most difficulty in mastering first grade reading and arithmetic had much higher probability of leaving high school without graduating and of experiencing serious academic problems while in high school…

This study analyzed the efficacy of sensory integration treatment by combining data from a study of 96 Canadian children (29 from Alberta and 67 from Ontario children and all aged 5-8). Results indicate that the therapeutic effect of sensory integration treatment is not greater than other, more traditional methods of intervention. (Author/JDD)

Extends earlier studies that surveyed educators about their use of and reaction to classroom literacy portfolios. Finds that a growing number of professionals are actually using portfolios. Finds also that educators agree that portfolios should be used for assessment purposes in the language arts and to help place individual students in special…

The study examined word recognition abilities of readers at instructional and frustrational reading levels with 32 learning-disabled readers in grades 2, 5, 8, and 11. Findings indicated that only in the category of linguistic acceptability (syntactic and semantic) did readers produce significantly fewer acceptable responses when reading…

Pupils (N=1,755) in 232 elementary school classes in Tennessee participated in a 3-year longitudinal study of the effects of reduced class size on reading and mathematics performance. The small-class setting increased performance significantly in both mathematics and reading, and it had an especially strong impact in inner-city schools.…

Measures the effects of two oral reading instructional routines (the Oral Recitation Lesson and Shared Book Experience) on second-grade students' reading development (including word analysis skills, oral reading errors, self-correction rates, oral retellings, vocabulary gains, and fluency). Finds that the Shared Book Experience was superior or…

Based upon teacher interviews and classroom observations, outlines a continuum of nine "points of progress" teachers seem to go through in learning to teach strategies to their lowest achieving students: confusion and rejection; teacher-controlled strategies; trying out; modeling process into content; "the wall"; "over the…

Compares fourth-grade single-word reading and spelling of French immersion and traditional English program students to first-grade achievement. Finds that the French immersion students maintained equivalence with English program students. Suggests that the French immersion students may surpass the English program students once they can join their…

Compares performance of 45 first graders in partial French immersion, partial Hebrew immersion, and traditional English programs on measures of linguistic analysis ability and early reading skills in English. Finds that subjects in the Hebrew program read nonwords better than the other groups and read orthographically regular words better than…

Second-grade children (n=603) were rated by teachers, and ratings were correlated with reading, spelling, and intelligence in the third grade. Results indicated that teachers were quite accurate in their judgment of low achievement but less so in their judgment of specific reading difficulties. (DB)

This study examined the effectiveness of repeated reading and assisted nonrepetitive strategies such as echo reading, cloze reading, and unison reading on reading and error rate, comprehension, and fluency with sixth-grade Chapter 1 students. Findings indicated equivalent benefits for both methods, with significant comprehension improvement over…

Finds that children identified as at-risk for reading disability scored higher on numerous measures of reading achievement after receiving two years of instruction in a structured phonics code-emphasis approach compared to similar children taught using a "context" approach in which children are taught to first identify unknown words using the…