Describes and presents an inventory for estimating primary grade students' ability to read mathematical vocabulary and their understanding of math concepts. (FL)

Diverse procedures need to be used to appraise pupil progress in reading achievement, because it takes different approaches to appraise in a comprehensive manner what pupils have learned in reading. There is much to evaluate, including knowledge acquired, skills developed, and attitudes fostered. Approaches which might be used include: (1)…

Noting the inadequate vocabularies of students in her college writing classes, the author calls for a revival of close textual reading at all educational levels as a means of improving reading and vocabulary skills. (PGD)

Provides a humorous look at remedial reading strategies by proposing a method of upside-down reading for remedial reading teachers to use with poor readers. (MG)

Elaborates the view that phonological recoding, or print-to-sound translation, is a self-teaching mechanism enabling learners to acquire the orthographic representations necessary for visual word recognition. Discusses developmental properties of phonological recoding, reviews evidence on the importance of cognitive abilities underlying the…

This interview, with one of the most influential professors in the field of developmental education and study skills, reviews the state of reading study skills as they apply to college students. Also discusses the new sixth edition of his book, "How to Study in College." (SL)

The "Critical Thinking and the Art of Close Reading" series (which includes this column and three others) focuses on some of the most basic understandings necessary for close reading (Paul & Elder, 2003). To read well, in addition to having these understandings, students must be able to identify the big picture within a text, to determine the key…

Noting that the demands of literacy have increased and that it is in this context that literacy performance must be evaluated, this book summarizes the most important results of the Young Adult Literacy Assessment, and provides thoughtful analysis of their implications from the standpoint of unemployment, economic competitiveness, the problem of…

There are at least two kinds of phonetic knowledge: phoneme synthesis and analytic knowledge. In phoneme synthesis a person demonstrates phonetic knowledge by being able to assemble segments into larger units. With analytic knowledge one knows that syllables or words are analyzable into constituent segments. One type of knowledge enables learning…

Libraries serve our nation and its citizens in two primary ways: by preserving our common culture, and by nurturing and sustaining democracy itself. A particular democratic function of libraries is fostering reading. As noted in two reports recently issued by the U.S. Department of Education, "What Works" and "First Lessons," it is imperative to…

There have been broad, and effective efforts in recent years to strengthen the humanities; however, there are still many problems, questions, and disagreements--especially in the areas of standards and competencies--to be resolved. Current legislative and board attention to standards provides an impetus for a serious review of current practices to…

Discusses Piaget's notion of intelligence, characteristics of formal operational thought, and the relationship between formal thought and reading ability. (HOD)

The teaching of reading has come to be regarded as one of the highest priority areas in modern education because schools have been failing to teach reading effectively to large numbers of students who progress to secondary school without having achieved a working competency in this basic skill. Much of the burden of reading instruction has fallen…

One of a series dealing with current issues affecting language arts instruction, this paper focuses on spelling. The paper begins with the observation that when people complain that students cannot write, too often they mean that when the students do write, they misspell a few words. After noting that spelling improvement comes from using words in…

Argues that the Degrees of Reading Power test is not a valid tool for its main purpose, matching students to appropriate texts, because the test's units of text difficulty are not uniformly comparable to the test's units used to reflect a reader's ability. (HOD)