Children ages 2-18 spend between two and four hours per day watching TV, a calculation that is even higher if DVDs, videos and the Internet are included. Although the amount of television watched by today's children has raised concerns about their literacy development, captions could hold a key to turning television into an educational asset.…

The disparity between the results of state accountability tests in reading and the fourth-grade National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has left many educators dismayed and concerned. In this article the authors describe a comparison of assessment approaches evident in NAEP to the approaches taken in a sample of state tests. The authors…

Mastery of content area reading in science and social studies is demonstrated through writing as well as reading. Integrating writing with reading enhances comprehension because the two are reciprocal processes. Therefore, teachers who implement a variety of writing strategies help students better understand content area texts. This article offers…

This article illustrates the development and use of a situated assessment tool in the context of a collaborative (university-school district) literacy reform effort in British Columbia, Canada. The three-year project was focused on improving literacy, including reading comprehension strategy use, among students in grades 4 through 8. It began in…