Contends article by K. Smith, V. Reina, and C. Brainerd in same "Kappan" issue demeans author's own evidence based on many years of observing actual children; research preferred by reading skills proponents is derived from experimental situations under manipulative conditions. Context is everything, and teacher's role is central. Evaluating all…

Based on a six-state survey of first- and fourth-grade teachers, describes how exemplary teachers provided their students with effective reading and writing instruction. Describes six common features of effective elementary reading and writing instruction categorized as time, texts, teaching, talk, tasks, and testing. (Contains 23 references.)…

Writers know how easy it is to be seduced by their own cleverness. Words and ideas have a way of turning heads as they take on lives of their own. However, the time comes when good writers must harden their hearts, sharpen the axe, and murder their darlings. The same must be said of good scientists. Even more so than with writing, ethical…

Summarizes 15 years of National Assessment of Educational Progress data on reading and writing in elementary schools. While reading performance has improved over the 1971-1984 period for black and Hispanic 9- and 13-year-olds and for younger disadvantaged children, writing results are less encouraging. Effective writing instruction may require…

Teachers tend to teach children in different reading groups in qualitatively different ways. Crows (slower readers) work on phonics in isolation twice as often as more accomplished Blue Jays and spend much less time on reading silently or in context. Since this situation inhibits reading achievement, teachers should seek Blue Jay potential in…

Drawing on specific examples in elementary school classrooms and flying instruction analogies, this article shows how teachers can creatively combine tenets of both holistic and direct approaches to reading instruction. Students are more likely to use reading and writing effectively when teachers themselves are empowered to select intelligently…

The National Reading Panel admits its evaluation report on phonics is seriously flawed as to organization, methodology, appropriateness of research base, generalizability of results, reliability, validity, and accuracy of data reported. However, an influential public-relations machine is promoting the study's favorable results as unvarnished…

The best evidence on effective instruction that we can garner is fragile, often stripped of any external validity. Almost every curriculum scheme works in some sites, and none has ever worked well everywhere. That has been the finding time after time when state and federal educational initiatives have been evaluated. There is a useful role for…

Relates individual student experiences to illustrate that many poor readers are dropouts of programs requiring strongly analytic/auditory reading styles. Recommends adopting the "whole-language" approach for today's global learners. Uses research findings to outline instructional methods that match students' reading styles. (CJH)

To be effective, teachers of blacks must know black culture and black dialect -- and how to apply this knowledge. (Author)

Presents two new approaches to improving academic achievement in inner-city schools--group-based, mastery-learning reading instruction and curriculum alignment. Explains why fundamental school reform and incremental improvement, introduced in the 1970s, failed to yield consistent results. (Author/WD)

Distressed by media headlines trumpeting supposed "reading-and-writing wars," a reading education professor discusses his Delphi survey of 11 reading experts. Experts agreed that emphasizing only phonics instruction and drill-and-practice would make learning to read difficult. Reading would be facilitated by bringing together…

Second-graders and a new teacher came up with an approach that showed him how much fun reading can be. The students voted on reading privileges; peer pressure maintained discipline; students shared books that their parents had read to them and invited "guest readers" to read with their class. (MLF)

After instituting a successful K-2 reading program at the Family Academy in Harlem, the authors of this article faced a new challenge. They set out to learn everything they could about reading comprehension, which they realized was the key to expanding their older students' knowledge of the world. They developed a K-2 reading program. It was…

Teachers in an Indiana junior high use the daily newspaper to motivate students to read, to encourage group participation, and to increase student awareness of the problems in society, of the relations between the races, and of the importance of knowing enough to hold down a job. (Author/IRT)