On December 3, 2004, President Bush signed into law the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA, 2004). The revised law is different from the previous version in at least one important respect. Whereas practitioners were previously encouraged to use IQ-achievement discrepancy to identify children with learning disabilities…

Discusses a method to motivate low level students in which a reading specialist attended class regularly as a "student." By questioning the teacher, comparing notes with students, and acting as a role model, the reading specialist helped these students improve their grades, their class behavior, and increase their self-esteem. (GEA)

Describes how the author, a reading specialist, served as a resource to students and teachers in a large high school by collaborating in different ways with different content area teachers. Shows how approaching this work as a partner rather than an expert, and enhancing teaching and learning for both teachers and students, can foster…

Literacy coaching is a very hot topic (Cassidy & Cassidy, 2007) that has been spurred on by two opposite belief systems. On one hand, the Reading First schools can receive federal funding to hire coaches to raise test scores. This has led some teachers to characterize coaches as "test-prep enforcers." On the other hand, Bean, Swan…

Offers a few suggestions on how to implement a school or district content-area reading and writing program. (PKP)

Evidence is mounting that federal employees and their agents may have directed or even pressured states to choose specific assessments, consultants, and the criteria for evaluating core reading programs as conditions for getting funding under the Reading First initiative, possibly in violation of federal law. "Education Week" found such…

Based on recommendations of the International Reading Association, this outline of a performance based program for training reading specialists consists of twelve semester hours of graduate work. The courses include basic decoding skills, comprehension/study skills, diagnostic techniques, corrective treatment, and a practicum. The four elements of…

Three support staff members--specialists in library/media, curriculum, and reading--of Rochester (NY) School for the Deaf describe their individual functions and interrelationships. Among topics touched on are the organization of instructional resources by the Learning Resource Center, staff training, and the need for a well-defined reading…

Suggests ways to develop strong middle-school reading programs involving efforts of states, school districts, and individual schools. Provides cost estimates. (PKP)

This guide presents a staff development program on content area reading that high school reading specialists can conduct for teachers of content areas such as history, chemistry, and literature. Section one of the guide offers specific reasons why professional growth is necessary for teachers, why reading education ought to be part of that…

Reports on a survey used to evaluate the secondary school reading program in Polk County, Florida. (DF)

Reading teachers should be flexible enough to adapt to varying situations that they encounter when they are asked to develop school-wide reading programs. Under ideal conditions, the faculty and administration are enthusiastic volunteers who accomplish the bulk of the reading program's objectives in their classrooms, allowing the reading…

In a two-year Title IV-C project, Content Area Reading, junior high art teachers attended workshops to improve their skills in teaching reading, then collaborated with reading resource teachers to develop art activities which reinforce reading, study, and listening skills. (SJL)

This article describes a reading improvement program operating in elementary schools near Copenhagen. Students take an annual reading test. The classroom teacher and the reading specialist review class scores to identify special-needs students and to plan reading program changes. General reading progress has been improved by this method. (SJL)

Issued twice yearly, this journal focuses on materials of interest to teachers of reading at the college level. The five articles in this issue deal with the following topics: basic skills instruction, judging the success of college reading programs, the effect of copying or paraphrasing structurally-cued topic sentences on passage comprehension,…