Based upon teacher interviews and classroom observations, outlines a continuum of nine "points of progress" teachers seem to go through in learning to teach strategies to their lowest achieving students: confusion and rejection; teacher-controlled strategies; trying out; modeling process into content; "the wall"; "over the…

Describes a program that teaches reading and thinking strategies through a student-centered, literature-based curriculum designed to increase students' cognitive strategy use, reading achievement, self-esteem, and critical-thinking abilities. An experiment demonstrated that 178 elementary school students in the program outperformed 174 control…

One teacher taught same story for three years to three groups of low-achieving second graders. An interaction-tracking and coding scheme was used to detect changes in student and teacher interaction patterns. By year three, students participated more actively in story discussion and used strategies with less teacher prompting. These changes…

Assessed elementary teachers' attitudes toward reading instruction, the role of basal readers in reading instruction, and the needs fulfilled for students, teachers, parents, and school administrators through classroom reading instruction. Found a conflict between teachers' beliefs and their reported methods of teaching. (MM)

Studied effectiveness of a cooperative-learning approach designed to foster strategic reading and social studies learning, in three heterogeneous, culturally and linguistically diverse, fourth-grade classrooms. Found that the experimental-group students made greater gains than control-group students in reading comprehension, and equal gains in…

Developed and evaluated an explicit approach to teaching students to engage in elaborated help-giving during collaborative group work in reading. Found that grade level and treatment exerted statistically significant and practically sizable effects on the help that students provided their peers. (Author/LPP)

Surveyed more than 500 educators to determine whether basal reading programs control or limit teacher instructional decision making. Found no limiting action: rather than "de-skilling" teachers, subjects reported, the materials have an empowering effect by providing additional instructional ideas to draw from, adapt, or extend. (ET)

Used questionnaire to investigate third-, fourth-, and fifth- grade urban, mostly minority, students' perceptions of reading groups. Found that whole-class instruction and working alone were used more frequently than group or pair instruction. Students at all levels of reading ability liked mixed-ability groups and mixed ability pairs the most,…

Presents a rationale for an integrated language arts curriculum based on pedagogical principles and describes an integrated language arts project based on these principles. Suggests ways in which traditional language arts programs can become more integrated, and remedial and regular programs can become more congruent. (RJC)

Investigated the effectiveness of guided practice in teaching reading comprehension to 31 sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students in a remedial reading class. Guided practice led to superior results in rule-based inference comprehension activities, but did not enhance student performance on QAR2 (a metacognitive strategy) activities. (RJC)

Interviews and observations revealed that only two of seven teachers fully accepted the Students Achieving Independent Learning (SAIL) program, a strategies-based approach to reading instruction. A major challenge seemed to be that the teachers did not know how to coordinate SAIL with other reading instruction. (MDM)

In this article we present results from a project to develop survey measures of the content knowledge teachers need to teach elementary reading. In areas such as mathematics and science, there has been great interest in the specialized ways teachers need to know a subject to teach it to others -- often referred to as pedagogical content knowledge.…

Reviews research on elementary school teachers' feedback to students' miscues in basal and content area reading. Describes the sustained feedback paradigm that developed from the Direct Instruction Programs. (Author/HOD)

Describes how in the 1960s and 1970s critics of the schools as well as the transitory interests of the schools themselves were the greatest forces for change in basal reader programs. Discusses how current demand for high test scores has influenced those who prepare basal material. (Author/NH)

Discusses the relationship between children's knowledge of their language and the process of reading, along with some implications for teachers. (MP)