A study investigated the impact of direct instruction on reading comprehension strategies and the degree to which cooperative learning processes enhance students' learning of strategies. Subjects, 486 third- and fourth-grade students in four elementary schools from an ethnically diverse school district in a medium-sized city in central…

The Book Club Project of the Center for the Learning and Teaching of Elementary Subjects is a 3-year line of research exploring the intersection of literature-based reading instruction and the role of student-led response groups. This work is in response to a current trend of creating authentic literacy opportunities in classrooms, reading…

Choral reading has a place as an adjunct in a total reading program at all levels of education and can serve to help keep alive the enthusiasm and efficiency for learning which children show at home in the first years of life. Many education scholars have noted its usefulness and suggested activities to develop it. Examples of the successful use…

This paper explores the conflict between instruction that characterizes Chapter 1 programs (which appear to advocate segmentation, isolated skills instruction, and other curricular incongruencies with the core reading classroom) and instruction that results from whole language philosophy. The paper maintains that the conflict may be due to a…

A study investigated the decoding automaticity of elementary students when receiving rule-based instruction (as a process of applying syllable and structural analysis rules and limited phonics), and when receiving holistic instruction in a whole language program (exercises in listening, reading and writing, integrated with classroom instruction…

A study investigated the ranking by first-year teachers of how much support instructional practices in reading received by universities, administrators, colleagues, and parents. Subjects, 110 new teachers in Texas, Colorado, and New Mexico, completed the survey. Results indicated that administrators, colleagues, and parents encourage use of basal…

To characterize basic processes of reading comprehension, this report focuses on how the reader's schemata, or knowledge already stored in memory, function in the process of interpreting new information and allowing it to enter and become a part of the knowledge store. The paper first traces the historical antecedents of schema theory, then…

A study evaluated the effectiveness of a direct instructional paradigm for teaching children to comprehend main ideas of prose passages. Subjects, 69 children in three fourth grade classes, were randomly assigned to an experimental "strategy" group receiving direct instruction in main ideas, an experimental "basal" group…

Article presented a number of definitions of reading with the advantages and disadvantages of reading taxonomies. (RK)

Compares the elementary reading programs in the two countries and describes the remedial programs in Hamburg. (RB)

Concludes that teachers should spend more time on improving and developing oral language skills, and reading practitioners and researchers should develop diagnostic tools for assessing oral language in relation to mastery of reading skills. (RB)

Presents guidelines for training and supervision in junior college tutoring programs designed to improve reading. (RB)

Concludes that steps in instruction that seem logical to adults may not make sense to six-year-olds in beginning reading instruction. (RB)