An organic approach to the teaching of reading emphasizes the selection of vocabulary from the experiential background of the child. (JH)

Reading instruction should include training in detecting illogical and emotional appeals intended to influence and deceive the reader.

Suggests that teachers and children may have different ideas about how people talk about stories in classrooms. Describes how teachers loosened their attempts to control children's talk and subsequently shared control with them, and collaborated in exploring stories and in teaching/learning to read. (HTH)

Academic tasks are listed on the board from which students choose their work. (JH)

Recounts a creative writing project with groups of remedial reading students in grades one through six that culminated with the writing of free verse poetry about hot air balloons. (HTH)

Describes a study of the development of reading and writing skills in hearing impaired children indicating that both hearing and hearing impaired students can best be instructed in reading when the reading has meaning for them and with stories they choose themselves and with dictations taken from their own experience. (HTH)

Offers teachers of upper elementary grade students practical guidelines for learning how their students respond to literature and how to use this information in the classroom. (HTH)

Challenges the concept of decodable texts with a review of contemporary children's books that support reader's learning with predictable features. Notes and/or discusses 38 children's books in relation to Kenneth Goodman's model of reading: predictable books as support for readers; text, lives, and other literature as support for inferencing and…

Discusses the current political situation in the United States and the ways in which literacy education, particularly reading education, has been socially constructed and politically situated in the last several years. Suggests that the policies educators are currently implementing will lead to a generation of teachers who pay homage to externally…

Asks herself 5 provocative questions so that the author can better align her teaching practices with her beliefs. Addresses thoroughly each question. Concludes that her current challenge is to continually examine how her teaching practices align with her vision of the future. (SG)

Provides a theoretical framework for thinking about how students read literature through the notions of envisionment-building and stories. Discusses possibilities for instruction. (MG)

Presents four composite profiles of teachers who illustrate different approaches to literature-based reading. Notes how different theories about the reasons for teaching literature cause differences in classroom literature experiences for children. (SR)

Discusses how young minds come to understandings about how words work, what conditions are necessary for these realizations, and how teachers can help. Discusses instruction that hinders, allows, or helps students' progress. (RS)

Looks at the features of teacher-guided discussions of literature that led elementary students toward constructing a theme for a story. Shows how students can profitably explore theme in the literature they are reading and provides an alternative to the directed reading activity format that has become typical of small group reading instruction.…

Responds to William Bigelow's 1989 article which was being used in a fifth grade classroom. Questions the approach taken by the teacher and focuses on how children can be most productively involved in the kind of critical reading Bigelow advocates. Discusses the use of "I-Charts" (inquiry charts) to foster critical reading. (MG)