Literature relating summarization skills to reading improvement and to test score gains is reviewed, and two new studies are reported. One study compared gain on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) of two groups of students, one (n=7 students) receiving instruction in summarizing skills and the other (n=14) receiving TOEFL…

Using easy-to-understand models from everyday practice and supporting the classroom observations with research, this book describes how a teacher replaced traditional phonics instruction with strategies incorporating "onset" and "rime" that improved students' reading comprehension. The book notes that as students' level of comfort with phonics…

Integrated approaches to the teaching of reading and writing being used in classrooms in Australia and New Zealand are described in this booklet. The first part of the booklet presents theoretical background on how children learn to talk and the reading and writing processes. The second and third parts of the booklet describe ways of putting…

The purpose of this paper is to present a direct instructional strategy, which is based upon what is known about effective classroom instruction. After defining direct instruction in reading, research that discriminates effective teachers from less effective teachers is presented. The paper then discusses the five-step, teacher directiveness…

Offers an explanation of metaphor comprehension and the processes of comparison it entails. Describes a strategy that focuses on the processes of comparison, intended for regular students in junior high school or gifted middle school students. Presents segments of an actual lesson illustrating the strategy. (JK)

A balanced approach to reading instruction favors cultivating reading as a strategic activity that requires intentionality, interest, and motivation on the part of the learner. Includes references. (MD)

Describes a behavior modification program aimed at encouraging students to increase the frequency of leisure reading done at home. (EL)

Suggests that one way reading teachers can begin to familiarize themselves with content area texts is to create network diagrams or maps of the information. (HOD)

As a result of recent federal legislation, school districts are being required to have all students reading at grade level by the year 2012. Such an exceedingly lofty goal cannot be achieved without powerful intervention programs. Here is a guide for districts and schools that outlines an intervention program for students in grades 1-3 who…

Intended for reading and classroom teachers, this book, organized in two parts, is a complete, step-by-step guide to setting up and running a reading workshop for grades 5-12 where reading is "the" priority. Part 1, "Management of the Reading Workshop," shows how to create a reading workshop, offers specific tools and…

Without the development of reading fluency as part of reading instruction, teachers may end up with a classroom full of students who read roughly and slowly, and who may not completely gather the important information from the text. One strategy to increase fluency is the fluency development lesson (FDL) that includes seven steps modeled by the…

Discusses strategies designed to improve elementary school children's memory and comprehension of text. The strategies include summarization, representation, mnemonic imagery, story grammar, question generation, question answering, and prior knowledge activation. (RJC)

Children's literature, with its complex structures and discourse strategies, helps beginning language students develop reading strategies and begin understanding discourse strategies in native speech. Tsao's notion of discourse analysis is used to introduce topic deletion in a sample of literary texts. (Contains 25 references.) (LB)

The article describes how to teach skills strategically in whole-language classrooms. It discusses differences between skills and strategies and notes how to move from skill to strategy. A section on teaching phonics examines phonics charts and personal phonics booklets; suggests an order for teaching phonics. (SM)

Argues that teachers should apply the same techniques to teach expository writing in social studies textbooks as they do with teaching children's literature. Presents four activities that can be used in whole class and small group instruction. Provides examples and a 13-item bibliography of more information. (CFR)