Discusses aspects of two qualitative studies that focused on: (1) children's interests in comics; and (2) reactions to a home-school comic lending library based in three classrooms over a period of seven weeks. Discusses results from both studies and implications for development of the primary school literacy curriculum. (BT)

Reviews selected research into the benefits of teacher development as an avenue for improving reading proficiency in urban schools. Looks at a multiyear teacher development intervention in a major city school district and the evidence it yielded, which indicated that professional development pays significant dividends for many of the most…

Investigates college students' beliefs about vocabulary knowledge and acquisition. Explains the study and how the findings have modified how the authors teach vocabulary to their students. Provides some concrete ways to help students learn new words and to use them in meaningful ways in order to improve reading comprehension and fluency. (SG)

Reviews the reading process in Arabic as a function of vowels and sentence context. Reviews reading accuracy and reading comprehension results in light of cross-cultural reading to develop a more comprehensive reading theory. Presents the phonology, morphology and sentence context of Arabic in two suggested reading models for poor/beginner Arabic…

Discusses whether or not beginning readers learn phonics best through instructional approaches that teach students to sound out letters, spell words, or combine the two. Concludes that caution is in order as experimental research assessing the effectiveness of each approach has yet to be conducted. Suggests, in the interim, instruction should be…

Analyzes adult literacy students' utilization of orthographic and phonological strategies to read sight words, to decode nonwords, to spell words, and to detect rhyming words. Indicates that when encountering difficulties adults were less likely than children to use phonological strategies and were more likely than children to rely on visual or…

Examines the strategies spontaneously used by Norwegian university law students as they tried to understand multiple expository texts as part of their normal reading and studying. Finds that students' strategic processing changed over time, with some of the changes associated with changes in students' perception of the nature of the reading task.…

This article argues for widening the research base on reading from the specific constraints of reading in alphabetic scripts to a larger database covering a variety of scripts. Several recent studies on reading the alphasyllabaries of India are reviewed. Findings indicate that alphasyllabaries are not processed in the same manner as alphabets.…

Looks at reading difficulties among multilingual children for whom English is a non-dominant language and the first script they have been exposed to. Finds that phonological intervention was particularly effective for children with the lowest single-word reading scores. Suggests that the intervention helped to catalyze the fine-tuning of the…

Considers if first and second language reading processes are really "the same." Discusses ways in which research designs accommodate second-language issues. Considers if a unique pedagogy for second-language readers is needed. Examines the need for future research. Represents a continued yet renewed commitment to understanding and helping users of…

Considers how theory might move multilingual literacy research forward. Discusses implications of considering greater emphasis on multilingual literacy theory development. Concludes that increased attention to multilingual literacy theory might enrich understandings of multilingual learners' literacy in many ways, most especially by leading…

Describes the results of one part of a two-year-long classroom study of sixth graders' engagement with and responses to nonfiction trade books. Considers what motivated these sixth graders to read the nonfiction titles they chose for small-group and voluntary reading. Concludes that when students are given the opportunity to select nonfiction…

Investigates sensitivity to rhyme and phoneme among readers and nonreaders with Down Syndrome (DS) and normally developing children. Evaluates a rhyme detection task and initial and middle phoneme detection tasks. Concludes the rhyme detection task was the easiest for nonreaders without DS and most difficult for readers with DS. (PM)

Reports on three studies comparing the reading and phonological skills of children with Down Syndrome (DS) and younger normally developing children of similar reading level. Notes that for children with DS, letter-sound knowledge did not predict reading. Suggests that children with DS do not possess full phoneme awareness. (PM)

Reviews an eclectic collection of research evidence on cohesion and redundancy. Notes that much research is in progress in these areas and that there are presently some conflicts in the findings. Concludes that the author's own tentative findings suggest strongly that cohesion and redundancy are important to the linkage between reader and writer…