Observational studies of elementary school classrooms have indicated that basal reading programs (BRPs) influence strongly both how children are taught to read and what they read. BRPs are developed by authors working in varying degrees of involvement with the editors of educational publishing companies. Classroom observation literature and…

This response to Gersten and Dimino (EC 606 357) claims that their paper: (1) does not emphasize the considerable research literature associated with both the whole language and direct instructional approaches; (2) does not help teachers make balanced instructional decisions; (3) focuses on extreme positions; and (4) considers motivation only in…

In its report "Becoming a Nation of Readers," the Commission on Reading defines reading as the process of constructing meaning from written texts, a view of reading that makes the use of strategies seem probable. If a book is a source of partial information, and readers are supposed to use knowledge they already possess to determine the…

A commonly held belief about reading instruction in the elementary grades is that students must first learn to read so that they will then utilize their reading skill to learn from written language and to acquire new ideas. Consequently most of the instructional time in the primary grades is spent in teaching students how to recognize words and…