Current articles on the power and influence of children's literature on primary children's literacy development and achievement were reviewed. Research indicates that literature has a positive effect on the academic achievement of children and that literacy skills are essential components of academic success. Children who have been exposed to…

Mandates about the kind and amount of literacy instruction in classrooms and levels of reading required for successful promotion from grade to grade are currently dominating state and federal legislation. This paper gathers scholarship from three disparate sources to produce the first integrated review of policy-related research on literacy…

From the perspective of reading specialists, factors contributing to reading difficulties include visual and auditory limitations, instructional and environmental problems, and emotional difficulties. A hierarchy of word recognition skills is presented. The usefulness of diagnosing children learning disabled or dyslexic is examined in the context…

This article shows how an understanding of phonological awareness can help teachers improve the reading skills of their students, particularly those at risk of failure. It examines the necessary components for a well-scaffolded program and possible adaptations that would be needed for learners who are at risk and those with disabilities. (Contains…

An overview of current theories of reading and the acquisition of literacy skills by children is presented. A research framework in which reading can be described in terms of the processes employed in other language uses is introduced and used to explain the failure of some children to learn to read. An ongoing research program is described that…

Focusing on the problems of validity and representativeness of samples, a study examined the history of literacy in the United States since 1880 in order to set the contemporary debate on test scores, literacy and reading performance in the longer-range perspective of the last 100 years. The quality of the data and the arguments of literacy…

A survey of recent studies on trends and allocations of resources in the American family structure, supplemented by empirical data on family dynamics, may be a step toward clarifying the issue of which processes of family life consistently contribute to children's performances in school. Whether family characteristics or family use of time and…

Defining cognitive style as the modes an individual uses in perceiving, organizing, and labelling aspects of his or her environment, this paper is the first in a series concerning some implications of a learner's cognitive style for the development of reading competence. The paper identifies nine dimensions of cognitive style and then provides a…

Reviews literacy and reading achievement trends over the past century and places the current debates in a historical perspective. Concludes that upgrading literacy skills now requires new initiatives by coalitions of educators, community groups, employers, and governments. (FL)

Longitudinal analysis of early childhood education, such as that in Project Follow Through, shows the superiority of explicit skill instruction for the acquisition of basic reading skills. But these early gains do not eventuate in significant progress in reading achievement in later grades, especially among disadvantaged youth. This is not for…

Research studies on how adults learn and develop second-language reading competence were considered in the context of a componential theory of reading. In particular, C. A. Perfetti's Verbal Efficiency Theory (VET) was used as a framework in which to organize and evaluate the studies' contribution to the field of second-language reading. The…

The research literature on assisted reading is reviewed to determine whether this approach should be recommended to remedial reading and classroom teachers. To date, research has been inconclusive as to when, how, or why any of the forms of assisted reading can be used effectively. (SEW)

An examination of the Russian reading program, this report first describes the nature of American interest in Soviet education. Sections 3, 4, and 5 then present overviews of the Soviet cultural context, the structure of the Russian language, and the organization of the Soviet school system. Section 6 discusses the course of language study from…

A review of research on reading and language development highlights the process of immersion, a concept posited by psycholinguistic theorists. Reading aloud, especially at an early age, significantly affects students as it bridges the gap between written and spoken language and familiarizes children with language patterns of literature, expands…

Cognitive research of the 1970s has shown that both content factors (topical world knowledge and knowledge about textual organization) and process factors (attention, encoding, inference, retrieval, and executive monitoring) influence comprehension. Classroom research during the same decade has shown that the greater the proportion of time…