Describes the educational trend being debated in the United States and its effect on English instruction there and in Australia. (RL)

A cognitive-developmental view of reading was tested with 100 four-year-olds by examining the relationship between conceptual reading (multiple seriation and perceptual regulations), oral language (vocabulary and grammatic production), and reading (word recognition and comprehension). Findings suggest that language-learning explanations of reading…

Studied interrelationships among metacognitive abilities at the word level (phonemic awareness and metacognitive abilities in word identification), word identification skills, and reading comprehension for 55 year-5 Australian students (aged about 9-10 years). Metacognitive abilities at word level are related to reading comprehension directly and…

Summarizes global findings from surveys of literacy levels around the world and makes the case for the sociopolitical bases for access to valued reading and writing practices. Drawing on recent Australian research, it focuses on difficulties in current provisions for reading education in institutionalized adult literacy programs. (seven…

This is the first report arising from a large-scale research project on the development of skills in English in the primary schools of Sydney, Australia. Specifically, it reports on a study of the extent of the relationship among the four communication skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking) in a sample of 314 children and on a…

Argues that since the successful teaching of reading does not depend on materials and schemes alone, a teacher who fails to acknowledge cultural factors that influence a pupil's ways of knowing will achieve only limited success. (EL)

This paper reports on a series of three studies designed to assess the effectiveness of a metacognitive approach to teaching word identification and reading comprehension skills to upper primary poor readers, and to investigate effective methods for implementing the metacognitive program in the regular classroom. To improve word identification…

Reviews the background and rationale for the development of tests of English for migrant students (TEMS) by the Australian Council for Educational Research Migrant Education Project. Describes the general content of TEMS and explains how TEMS can be incorporated in an English as a second language curriculum. (AEA)

Explores the reading traditions and practices that influence the interpretation of two text types, academic and general text, by postgraduate students from Thailand and India studying in the areas of business, humanities, engineering/science, and health sciences. Data were collected from case studies conducted at an Australian university.…

Over 400 e-learning grant applications from Australian primary schools were analysed to determine the nature of the proposed ICT based projects in literacy and numeracy. Three key dimensions emerged from the teacher descriptions: ICT infrastructure, motivation and ICT use, and pedagogy and innovation. The three dimensions, and the interactions…

Intended to aid schools in designing a Literacy Profile (defined here as consisting of documented information from a variety of assessments of a student's performance over a range of items defined as the dimensions of language learning), this pamphlet presents an alternative to standard assessment techniques. In the form of data tables the…

Describes the Australian Language Certificates project, an initiative which provides incentives to students studying second languages by offering external recognition of achievement and enhancing the status of secondary school language learning. It includes listening and reading assessment tasks in six languages. Students receive certificates…

Students from seven schools, some from English-speaking (N=226) and some from non-English speaking (N=60) families, were tested for reading achievement in grades 1, 2, 3 and 6, and for mathematics achievement in grade 6. Students from non-English speaking families achieved significantly poorer reading results than those from English speaking…

This paper suggests that by emphasizing word identification skills and oral reading and by using limited reading materials, teachers have neglected reading for meaning. Following a review of current instructional practices, the paper explains how understanding writing depends on the world experience, language knowledge, and processing strategies…

Following the style of the 1958 original, this third edition of the Neale Analysis of Reading Ability is both a standardized attainment test and a diagnostic test for readers of all ages and thus can be used to assess reading progress objectively as well as to obtain structured diagnostic observations of an individual's reading behavior. It…