Describes how basal readers manufacture reading failures among students from less-privileged economic and social backgrounds. Reviews the history of reading instruction in the United States. Calls for educators to speak out against reading practices that protect the privilege of the upper and upper-middle classes by encoding their values and…

Virtually every country in Europe discovered in the late 1970s that a section of its population had serious difficulties in using written language. Examined from an historical angle, this phenomenon can be seen as part of a complicated set of factors. Urban France can be said to have been fully literate by the late eighteenth century, especially…

A city-wide elementary school reading program that emphasizes mastery learning and continuous progress in Chicago, Continuous Progress--Mastery Learning, is blamed for the declining reading test scores of high school students there. The program's origins and evolution are described along with a new program, Chicago Mastery Learning Reading, which…