Over 100 million families worldwide lack permanent housing or income sufficient to meet their basic needs. Some homeless children are able to succeed in school despite the many challenges they face, but others are not. Seventy-five percent of U.S. homeless children perform below grade level in reading, and schools and teachers may not be prepared…

The author relates her personal experiences with reading instruction as a student and with reading. (FL)

Argues that, as the meaning of literacy changes, the role of literacy educator is also being fundamentally altered. Argues that the Internet is redefining literacy, learning, and teaching. Discusses changes in why people need to be literate, what it means to be literate, and how people become literate. Lists new opportunities on the Internet. (SR)

Suggests that, in the rush to make programs literature-based and to privilege the child's book choices, reading teachers have undervalued both the contribution of easy-to-read books and the expertise of teachers who would judiciously suggest books for children to help move their literacy development along. (RS)

Offers a humorous look at the problem of assessment. (FL)

Shares how one first year teacher learned an important lesson about what to expect from students of low ability levels. Discusses how students in the "low" reading group succeeded in reading and understanding the reading materials of the "high" group that they had mistakenly been given. (MG)

Provides a guide for designing lessons for teaching content area reading in the elementary grades. (FL)

Talks about the classroom as a garden and how teachers are lonely gardeners. Compares how teachers, gardeners, and illiterate women across the world are connected. (MG)

Presents the problem of intentional or unintentional plagiarism on the part of young students, several possible causes for it, and offers ways teachers can help students avoid copying and understand the value of owning one's writing. (JC)

Argues that music and singing readily fit the needs of the whole language approach to reading instruction. Provides a five-step method for using music to teach reading. (FL)

Provides insights and procedures used in clinical approaches to reading diagnosis and suggests ways classroom teachers might use them. (FL)

Discusses, from the point of view of a leader in the whole language movement, the role and the importance of teachers in whole language literacy instruction. (SR)

Discusses several reforms in the late 1990s that were introduced to improve the teaching of reading in primary (elementary) schools and raise reading achievement levels in Ireland and in England. Examines some of these reforms, in light of emerging knowledge about effective reading instruction and differing perspectives on the role of the teacher…

Suggests having teachers give reading inservice training to each other. Describes one program that did this. (FL)

Suggests that reversing a basal reading lesson sequence can help teachers achieve some of the tenets of schema theory. Presents a lesson that does this. (FL)