Describes how to motivate middle school readers by using story flow chart organizers. Provides a sample story flow chart for "The Long Way Around" by Jean McCord. (MM)

Explains how to "carve" a text, rearranging or omitting words without altering the basic message. Notes that this exercise helps students become aware of how language can be manipulated for meaning. (MM)

Describes the "Textbook Awareness and Performance Profile," an interview procedure for teachers or reading specialists to identify students strengths and weaknesses in reading and understanding textbooks. Offers guidelines for use, includes the instrument itself, and discusses its application to instruction. (SR)

Describes teachable moments and how students' questions, enthusiasm, and motivation lead them through full-steam reading voyages of discovery. (SR)

Discusses the challenges of classroom decision making. Offers an organic framework for teaching reading strategies, focusing on the teacher's decision points. Uses hypothetical scenarios of whole-class instruction to show how basic beliefs about literacy can be interwoven into a decision-making cycle. (SR)

Describes the Modified Guided Silent Reading Procedure (MGSR), which provides an instructional framework for teaching complex literacy and learning strategies to fluent readers of about nine years of age and above. Notes that the MGSR is student centered and consistent with beliefs about language and learning that underpin programs aligned to a…

Describes the Salient Characteristics Analysis Technique (SCAT), used to assist students in comprehending metaphorical text. Describes a sample lesson using a Langston Hughes poem. (SR)

Describes a teaching approach which made connections among reading, writing, English, and world geography, and which encouraged students to transfer learning strategies from one subject to another. (SR)

Describes a vocabulary instructional unit and the repeated encouragement, modeling, and review that helped seventh and eighth graders use context clues to learn the meanings of new words. Discusses characteristics of the instruction that contributed to its effectiveness. (SR)

Presents the 1992 "Young Adults' Choices," an annual list of favorite books chosen in voting by students in middle schools and junior and senior high schools in the United States. Offers brief descriptions of the 30 books on the list (published since 1990), and supplies bibliographic data for each title. (SR)

Reports on a study during which intermediate level students were exposed to three auditory backgrounds while reading (no music, classical music, and rock music), and their subsequent comprehension performance was measured. Concludes that the auditory background during reading may affect comprehension and that, for most students, rock music should…

Invokes an analogy between navigation and literature appreciation, suggesting how books can help students find their way and navigate in the future. Argues that reading teachers need to be enthusiastically familiar with all literary genres so that they can help students see books with an eager and expansive eye. (RS)

Describes a schema-awareness activity (used with sixth graders and college students) that provides teachers with a model of how students can use their past experiences and their ability to infer and predict when reading. Notes that the activity convinces students that they bring to the reading act much more than they encounter on the printed page.…

Describes a joint effort in a school/university partnership to develop, implement, and evaluate a literature-based approach to sixth grade social studies. Discusses theory and rationale; designing the unit; addressing prior knowledge; think sheets; head, hand, and heart of citizenship; developing personal responses; and program effectiveness. (SR)

Reviews the third edition of this widely used assessment instrument. Concludes that the test is reliable, quick and easy to administer, and that the publishers provide many special services. Lists liabilities as lack of validity evidence, omission of reading and study skills, and lack of distinctions among different types of reading comprehension.…