This digest is intended to help and inform those teachers who are contemplating using children's literature to teach reading, and provides a brief review of material in the ERIC database on literature-based reading instruction. The digest includes sections on recent research, basic resources, assessing literature based reading, diverse methods…

Nursery rhymes and written phonics used in a meaningful context are valuable teaching methods which can be applied in a whole language classroom or in conjunction with a basal reading program. Because nursery rhymes are rooted in oral tradition they lend themselves to oral presentation. They provide forms for the oral beginnings of the best of…

Numerous comprehension strategies can be used successfully with both children's literature and a basal reading series to help children focus on written text during reading. One of the most important techniques is developing background knowledge prior to reading--the overall purpose of which is to help readers relate their existing schemata to the…

The primary focuse of the research project reported in this paper over a five-year period has been on investigating the effectiveness of vocabulary teaching strategies, with particular emphasis on the two semantic-based instructional strategies of semantic mapping and semantic feature analysis. A series of five varied studies evaluated these…

A study was designed to determine if the classifications and definitions of context clues suggested in ten reading methods textbooks were used in three basal reading series. The method textbook analyses provided 27 different context clues. The analysis of the basal reading series--D. C. Heath (1983), Ginn (1984), and Scott, Foresman (1983)--showed…

The articles in this themed issue focus on the use of real literature in reading instruction. Following a comment from the editor, the titles of the articles and their authors are as follows: (1) "Understanding Poetry: Questions to Consider" (Nancy Wiseman Seminoff); (2) "Experiencing a Novel: The Short and Long of It" (David M. Bishop and…

A study compared reading instruction in two South Carolina public elementary schools, Sumner and Danville, that receive federal funding for remedial reading instruction under Chapter 1 of the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act. The two schools vary in many ways--Danville is a "traditional" school in a predominantly black urban…

A study compared the reading achievement over 3 years of a group of elementary school students taught to read by means of a single-basal system and one taught by means of a tri-basal system. Subjects were 34 current sixth grade students from a school that uses the Ginn "Reading 720" series, representing two or more grade levels, for all students…

This research review is an examination of representative studies on the nature of the reading process and of various instructional methods in reading deemed to be of interest to classroom teachers of reading. The review provides both a theoretical perspective and related empirical evidence to guide instructional practice and discusses the ways in…

The second annual report of the 4-year Project CREATE describes activities toward the Project's overall objective of determining how effective microcomputer and related technologies can be in improving the education of learning disabled students. During the second year examination of factors understood to contribute to the beneficial use of…

The vocabulary lists from five basal readers were examined in an effort (1) to determine what information is taught in the form of phonic generalizations in current, primary-level basal readers; (2) to examine intraprogram reliability of those generalizations; and (3) to determine whether the content of generalization instruction had changed since…

Beginning reading instruction is a challenge that teachers can meet successfully by using imagination, working hard, displaying enthusiasm, and expressing genuine concern for the young children that they teach. This paper offers guidelines for beginning reading teachers who base their programs on traditional basal readers. The guidelines are…

In describing the K-12 reading program in the North Bend (Oregon) School District, this report presents a brief history of the program, discusses key aspects, and lists the program's standards. The program history covers its start in 1974, the effect of an earlier Right to Read campaign, and the district's adoption of the Macmillan basal reading…

Ten second grade students in a slow reading group were studied to compare the effects of basal and language experience instruction on word recognition skills. For four weeks, all the students received 90 minutes of basal instruction each morning. During the afternoon sessions, the five language experience students dictated and read stories related…

The faculty of a middle school has constructed a model of a reading program, using components of other programs at other grade levels. The elements of the model include basal reading, teaching reading in the content areas, and individualized reading. The strengths of these components depend on teachers' understanding of learning theory and…