The effective classroom reading instruction and early reading interventions is routinely misrepresented and exaggerated by the federal officials. Individual tutoring that produces on-level reading achievement is presented based on the misinterpretations of the research.

There is a convergence of research evidence pointing to the critical role good phonics decoding skills play in good reading; however, there is no convergence in the research on precise development of reading strategies or on types, intensity, or duration of appropriate phonics instruction. Five unscientific assertions are often cited in phonics…

Presents a short examination to test principals' knowledge of current theories of reading and reading instruction and offers preferred answers and the reading theories underlying the answers. (Author/JM)

Describes several techniques middle school teachers can use to help students make the transition from skills oriented to content oriented reading as they pass from the elementary to the secondary level. (RB)

Discusses the "diagnostic and prescriptive" instructional model for teaching young children in the United States to read, and cautions teachers not to rely too heavily on this approach but to remember that much of what they do is art. (JM)

A study was conducted to examine the differences in reading instruction for good and poor readers. Poor readers were found to have less opportunity to read silently or aloud in the classroom and to read only half as many words as the good readers. (HTH)

Traces research citations noted in advocacy and policy documents to their original sources to determine whether use of"decodable text" in early reading instruction is research-based. Researchers could locate no reliable, replicable research to support policy assertions that using decodable text, as defined in California and Texas policy…

Based on a six-state survey of first- and fourth-grade teachers, describes how exemplary teachers provided their students with effective reading and writing instruction. Describes six common features of effective elementary reading and writing instruction categorized as time, texts, teaching, talk, tasks, and testing. (Contains 23 references.)…

Describes how to evaluate reading assignments so that teachers will know when and how to intervene. (MB)

Argues that differences in instruction influence differences in students' reading abilities as much as do variations in individual learning styles or aptitudes. Suggests ideas for enhancing instruction of poor readers. (RH)

The best evidence on effective instruction that we can garner is fragile, often stripped of any external validity. Almost every curriculum scheme works in some sites, and none has ever worked well everywhere. That has been the finding time after time when state and federal educational initiatives have been evaluated. There is a useful role for…

A study compared two groups of second grade children (one receiving code-emphasis reading instruction and the other receiving eclectic reading instruction) on their ability to generate target words deleted from sentence frames, given minimal graphemic information. Target words were either a high-frequency word or low-frequency synonym while…

Results indicated that students identified as disadvantaged who participated in Chapter One received significantly more reading and language arts instruction in regular education classes than did mainstreamed children identified as handicapped and served through special education programs. (PCB)

A study of physical and pedagogical characteristics, determination of basal difficulty, and story contents in West German and United States reading texts shows that basal readers are more often similar than dissimilar, perhaps having undergone similar developmental changes across cultures. (JM)

Every 30 years or so, a very public yet personal debate about the nature of appropriate reading instruction emerges in the media and in the policy talk in legislative venues. It manifests itself in a "code-emphasis" vs. "meaning-emphasis" dichotomous debate that wears on the teaching profession at the same time that it sells…