This paper examines the degree to which British adults participating in workplace literacy courses improved their reading comprehension skills, using longitudinal data which cover the period from enrolment until between two and three years later. Learners were tested using an instrument designed explicitly for adults, with two parallel forms. For…

Discusses the literacy problem in Britain, presents research on reading skills, and examines a variety of efforts to improve the reading skills of youngsters. (RB)

Examines the results of the Schools Council study in Britain on children's reading habits and interests, concluding that the results need to be acted on if the reading of British children is to be improved. (RB)

The paper synthesizes and analyzes research on the technique for nonprofessional tutoring of reading known as paired reading. Data from many extant small-scale studies are compared with the very large quantity of new data available from multisite field trials in one British local education authority. (SM)

Discusses the practice of listening to children read aloud as a method of improving reading skills. Demonstrates that the phenomenon is not a simple, fixed treatment to be assessed on limited dependent variables. Concludes that in current evaluations there is insufficient analysis of the practice to do justice to possible effects and to help…

Describes how students in a history course for developing college readers assumed the investigatory role of a parliamentary committee to study the impact of industrialization in nineteenth-century Britain. (SR)

Evaluates one aspect of the Read It Project, a community literacy project initiated and managed by Leeds Education 2000. Focuses on the reading attitudes and behavior of 61 children who attended Read It Clubs in 1998-1999. Concludes children enjoyed the Read It Clubs they attended, valued the experience, and believed they gained from it. (RS)

Television output in the United Kingdom is limited to three main channels. Two of these are controlled by a public corporation, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC); one is operated by a number of commercial companies under the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA). Both the BBC and IBA have expanded their educational output in recent…

Examines the relationship between pre-school reading and reading achievement among 343 seven year-old students. Pre-school reading scores were significantly related to word matching ability, concepts about print, letter identification, word reading, and oral vocabulary. (RKM)

Describes how one teacher helped students in her third grade class, who had below average spelling and reading skills, improve their reading achievement by using a structured, graded, multifaceted approach to spelling instruction. (ARH)

Reports that story-type chapters with dialogues, presented to lower secondary pupils (N=546) before they read a bio-technical text: (1) increased their objective understanding in terms, bio-technical instruction, and sequences in a process; and (2) enhanced their subjective assessment of the ease and attractiveness of the bio-technical text. (DH)

This book reports on one of the largest studies ever undertaken in Great Britain of what primary schools do to improve literacy and what is going on in classrooms where improvements are taking place. The Leverhulme Primary Improvement Project was a 2-year research project funded by the Leverhulme Trust. The book aims to provide insight into what…

Review of over 40 studies of parents hearing their children read showed that parent listening programs modeled on Britain's Haringey project failed to have significant effects on children's reading achievement. Studies in which parents of poor readers were trained in behavioral, pause-prompt-praise, or paired reading approaches showed significant…

Describes the Reading Is Fundamental, UK program. Argues for taking books to children and families in areas where there is little or no book culture. Notes that through free book distributions and accompanying high-quality motivation events, the program has shown that children who choose reading for pleasure are more likely to use reading for…

In 1998, the British Government introduced the National Literacy Strategy (NLS) in all state primary schools (encompassing students aged 5-11) in England in a bid to raise literacy standards. A year earlier, 13 local education authorities were involved in the piloting of the project, including the city of Newcastle upon Tyne. The first Newcastle…