In fall 2013, Career and Technical Education (CTE)-focused composition classes were piloted to accommodate Leeward Community College's requirement for college-level composition for students in the CTE majors. The first CTE-focused class was an accelerated developmental education reading and writing course for students placing two steps below…

Educational policy in the U.S. currently centers on college and career readiness, with the spotlight is on high schools to meet higher expectations for students' literacy achievement. Ever-rising expectations are consistent with the U.S. standards movement, now in its third iteration. As funding for school improvement becomes increasingly scarce,…

This article investigates the potential benefits of using children's literature in adult second language (L2) classrooms. A short-term, intensive university course for English reading and writing was designed incorporating children's literature into the curriculum. The author describes the course and discusses how children's literature can be used…

In the struggle to raise U.S. students' achievement in literacy, Hartnett-Edwards says, the emphasis has shifted from finding the right materials to creating better teachers. Central to creating better teachers are literacy coaches. The author claims that the role of literacy/reading coach has evolved beyond its roots in NCLB legislation, when…

This study examined the school and student predictors of early reading outcomes for kindergarten students enrolled in schools that participated in a beginning reading reform program. The study employed a nested design with students nested within schools and applied hierarchical linear modeling analyses to account for the organizational structure…

Every multicultural society has a language of power--the language spoken by members of the dominant group or groups--as well as languages that lack power because they are spoken by members of the subordinate group or groups. The ascension of one language over another has long been a source of controversy in Hawai'i, as it has in many parts of the…

This is the first examination of exemplary evaluation under a new editorial approach, in which the authors are attempting not only to report how the evaluation was conducted and to explain the rationale for design and implementation but also to examine the conditions, events, or actions that might have contributed to its exemplary status. This…

Suggests that teachers and children may have different ideas about how people talk about stories in classrooms. Describes how teachers loosened their attempts to control children's talk and subsequently shared control with them, and collaborated in exploring stories and in teaching/learning to read. (HTH)

Newspaper headlines from across the United States reflect the turmoil in public education today, with some states protesting federal requirements for testing, some states lowering proficiency requirements, other states raising proficiency requirements, and even kindergarten and preschool children facing higher academic expectations. These…

An elementary teacher who completed her preservice fieldwork with Hawaii's PETOM (Preservice Education for Teaching of Minorities) program discusses the experimental process she uses to teach students to read and to love reading. By presenting her diary, the article highlights her whole-language approach to teaching a love of reading. (SM)

Describes a reading program that features systematic instruction in comprehension that has been developed for Polynesian and Hawaiian children identified as educationally high risk. (AEA)

Discusses the whole literacy curriculum, which encompasses ownership, the writing process, reading comprehension, language and vocabulary knowledge, word reading and spelling strategies, voluntary reading. Outcomes of a five-year implementation effort in Hawaii indicate curriculum can improve literacy achievement of students of diverse…

A first-grade teacher in Hawaii's Kamehameha Schools describes her experiences introducing educational technology into the classroom, examining her fears and successes as she and her students learned to use optical scanners, telecommunications, CD-ROM, and electronic mail to enhance their reading and writing skills. (SM)

Hawaiian fifth graders learned to teach reading and peacemaking to kindergartners. After receiving instruction on peacemaking, leadership, and storytelling, the students taught the kindergartners about peace, chose books to read to them, practiced reading aloud, then read to their selected partners, using the strategies they had learned in class.…

An inquiry-based curriculum can become the vehicle for bringing students out into the community and bringing the larger world to the classroom. The article describes one Hawaiian teacher's elementary curriculum that encouraged talking, sharing, and collaboration and incorporated reading and writing for real purposes into the curriculum. (SM)