This paper describes a recent study of the literacy practices in New Zealand and Australia. Through the voices of students, teachers, administrators, parents, state agency persons, and university faculty, the literacy programs "down under" are heard and seen. The paper also discusses programs for special needs children and briefly…

Research indicates that incorporating both pre-reading and post-reading activities into the English curriculum contributes to a more successful reading experience for students of all ages and backgrounds. The primary advantage of using either (or both) strategies is that they actively involve students in what they are reading and studying,…

Compiles a list of strategies (culled from 46 postsecondary reading textbooks) that can prove useful as instructional aids when teaching developmental college readers how to deal with considerate and inconsiderate text. Notes that many of the strategies included in the textbooks were vague, incomplete, and lacked a real instructional component and…

This article presents evidence that initial and advanced reading abilities are predominantly mediated by the right and left cerebral hemispheres, respectively. Premature reliance on left hemisphere reading strategies or later failure to shift from earlier right hemisphere strategies are hypothesized as resulting in two different types of dyslexic…

Argues that teachers should apply the same techniques to teach expository writing in social studies textbooks as they do with teaching children's literature. Presents four activities that can be used in whole class and small group instruction. Provides examples and a 13-item bibliography of more information. (CFR)

Reviews research and instruction using think alouds. Notes that teachers using think alouds to model strategies implies a model of learning in which teachers construct knowledge and transmit it to their students. Suggests that using students as think aloud models represents a more recent theory of knowledge as socially constructed and represents…

Examines the use of drawing as a learning strategy for 5th- and 6th-grade students reading science text. Three experimental drawing conditions and a reading control tested the hypothesis that drawing is effective only when students are supported during the construction process. Results were generally consistent with the proposed hypotheses.…

This literature review examines studies in the field of metacognition and reading comprehension on the elementary level. It discusses sources in the areas of metacognitive theory, field experimentation, and specific learning and teaching strategies which have emerged from experimentation. The 25 sources are taken from published journals and ERIC…

Intended to serve as a resource for the many and varied groups concerned with improving students' reading proficiencies, this report from the Nation's Report Card provides a long-term perspective on students' reading skills and strategies based on a series of five national assessments conducted from 1971 to 1988. Each chapter of the report…

If, by looking more closely at word identification, knowledge of word meanings, and reading comprehension, some interesting similarities and differences are found between children and adults who are learning to read, then the approaches that work best with each group can be identified. When children learn to read, fluency of word identification…

Reviews the results of research on English as a foreign language conducted in Brazil using verbal report data to examine the cognitive processes and strategies people use in reading and writing. Offers suggestions for future research on the topic. (NKA)

Suggests that further explication of the notion of "importance" will benefit the reading field, at both practical and theoretical levels. (ARH)

Draws a humorous analogy between the Harmonic Convergence ushering in the dawn of the New Age and the convergence of a whole set of different views of reading instruction with established views and practices. (RS)

Reviews research on the possible roles that errors might play in learning to read. Contrasts a productive view of errors with the view that errors are problematic to instruction, stating that the two are compatible. Concludes that errors can have both a generative and an inhibiting function depending upon instructional conditions. (GEA)

Reviews relevant research in reading comprehension strategies and cooperative learning methods. Describes reading strategy groups as an approach for content area instruction, along with practical suggestions for implementation. (JD)