In this article, the author offers suggestions on what teachers can do to build and protect their students' confidence in their reading abilities. These suggestions include: (1) Create accepting classroom environments; (2) Use authentic assessments; (3) Choose interesting, appropriate texts; and (4) Use supportive reading strategies.

Teachers sometimes try every intervention strategy they can think of to help struggling readers. However, some teachers still feel that they are not getting through. This article presents the reading strategies offered by two literacy researchers Michael Pressley and Nell K. Duke, of Michigan State University.

When outlining is used as a task to focus discussion of a reading selection in small collaborative learning groups, it helps students to map out a sequence of ideas on a trial basis, takes the pressure off students to come up with a "right answer," and gives them a feel for the process by which meaning gradually develops and unfolds.…

Responds to Robert Slavin's unfavorable evaluation of mastery learning by advocating a wide variety of learning methods and strategies. Mentions a recent paper discussing the need for mastery learning improvements, initial prerequisites, a supportive home environment, reading automaticity, and teaching higher mental processes. (MLH)

Offers a humorous perspective on being a proponent of the whole language approach to reading instruction in the face of those who favor phonics and specific skill instruction. (SRT)

Because vocational students need to be able to read, visualize, and follow directions on the job, teaching them how to read and understand a textbook gives them a vital skill they can practice while acquiring technical skills. (SK)

Views both reading and writing as acts of composing and presents planning, drafting, aligning, revising, and monitoring as components of the composing model of reading. (JL)

Argues that, as an exquisitely designed pattern detector, the human brain can most effectively acquire reading skill through exposure to varied texts, and that teaching isolated "reading skills" may only serve to improve scores on skill tests. Contrasts the theoretical bases underlying these two approaches to reading instruction. (PGD)

Provides (in a humorous manner) quotations on the teaching of reading and on the process of reading from famous persons and literary works, with emphasis on lines taken from Shakespearean plays. (MKM)

The author discusses the large number of blind college students who cannot use braille effectively, and asserts that classroom teachers, rehabilitation counselors, and rehabilitation teachers have the obligation to ensure that students possess braille literacy before application to a college or university. (CL)

Indicates that literacy skills are basic to the survival of a democratic society. Discusses reading as an empowerment tool for allowing people to participate in the democratic process and stresses the relationship of the educational and political establishment to a literate society and between literacy and social equality. (Author/JOW)

Advocates looking around and discovering the real literacy exhibited in everyday activities. Describes the literacy observed at a laundromat. Finds that everyone there was literate in this situation, able to both follow directions and entertain themselves with reading. (SR)

Educators must understand and act on scientific evidence so that the reader learns to access print accurately and fluently. The process of conducting scientific research is presented so that scientific evidence can be clearly understood by the educators to select the most effective and instructional approaches.

Similar trends are occurring in schools. Lenhart, Simoin, and Graziano (2001) found that 94% of teens online use the Internet for school research projects, and according to the U.S. Department of Education (2004), "even students from low-income groups without access to technology at home seek and find it-using computers at schools, libraries, or…

Since Susan Adler, Alberta Dougan, and Jesus Garcia like "big ideas," the author offers one to ponder: young people in this country can not read with comprehension. The saddest thing about this crisis is that it is no secret. The 2001 results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for reading, published in every major…