This article considers what happened when a teacher posed the following question to her fifth graders during literature discussions: "Why might we read more than one story about a topic or a person?" As the students responded to this question across several weeks, they began to develop a more comprehensive conception of themselves as readers,…

Lists and describes 14 reading programs offered through the National Diffusion Network (NDN) and approved by a special review panel of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (DHEW).

Cites personal experience and research which supports peer group work in spelling, noting this method provides an opportunity to create linkages between reading, writing, and spelling instruction. Suggests strategies for implementing an individualized spelling program. (NH)

Describes a bilingual open classroom program for kindergarten children in which the classroom environment is rich with printed language and children are introduced to reading by an individualized system they both enjoy and profit from. Tells how children "write" books, how phonics is introduced, and how reading is incorporated in a variety of…

Uses proverbs to facilitate the development of inferential reading skills. Provides examples of proverbs which children have finished with their own original endings. (MG)

Describes how a unit titled "Alice Adjective" can be presented dramatically by the teacher in four lessons. (MG)

Describes the reading/language arts program at Queen Bee Elementary School (in a Chicago suburb), designated as an exemplary program by the International Reading Association. (SR)

Explores the use of drama as a teaching tool to promote students' interest in literacy and to support every aspect of literacy development. Describes how drama can help develop affect, emergent literacy, decoding knowledge, fluency, vocabulary knowledge, syntactic knowledge, discourse knowledge, and metacognitive knowledge. Discusses also using…

Describes vocabulary anchors, a graphic teaching strategy that helps young learners build the conceptual connections they need to understand informational (nonfiction) text. Discusses three essential understandings about early learners and concept development. Offers several examples of using vocabulary anchors in the classroom. (SR)

Notes that a major goal within the language arts block is learning to recognize and write the letters of the alphabet. Presents 4 reasons that have been suggested as to why early letter knowledge exerts such a strong influence over learning to read and write. Presents descriptions of 12 websites dealing with the alphabet. (SG)

Examines how different types of word recognition instruction appeared to affect students with different early literacy foundations. Finds differences in instructional practices to be related to growth in reading. Identifies four classroom practices that seemed to have the greatest success with children entering first grade with minimal reading…

Trade books and teacher resources for the library are recommended for ten different curricular areas. (MKM)

Reviews software available to the classroom teacher for desktop publishing and describes specific classroom activities. Suggests using desktop publishing to produce large print texts for students with limited sight or for primary students.(NH)

Offers an overview of some reading and language arts computer projects in the United Kingdom, including language teaching and intelligent knowledge-based systems, assessment of written style by computer, and desktop publishing in the primary school. (ARH)