Methods shown to be effective in helping less fluent readers develop fluency suggest a set of principles that teachers may find helpful in designing regular classroom activities for fluency development. These principles include: (1) repeated reading of one text or meeting target words repeatedly in a variety of texts; (2) teacher modeling of…

Notes that in the fourth grade, readers begin a transitional period where emphasis shifts from experiential reading to include informational and expository material. Discusses reading in the different content areas--English, history, mathematics, and science--and asserts that teachers should spend more time preparing students to read in these…

Examines reading awareness and comprehension skills to discover the developmental and instructional relationships between metacognition and performance. Half of the third- and fifth-grade subjects received four months of classroom instruction on reading strategies. Results of pre- and posttests and interviews revealed that the instruction…

Describes pilot study conducted with fifth grade non-readers or poor readers which uses a child's physical activities in the outdoors to lead to, direct, and develop the printed word. Provides eight reading lesson ideas using interaction with objects in nature to create reading materials. (LFL)

Science activities which help children look at the natural world can also help them gain skills for reading. Examples illustrating this link (verbal expression, vocabulary, finding main points, following directions, and writing laboratory reports) are given along with guidelines for teachers interested in building up and building on reading…

Reports on a study using teaching strategies for content reading material that focus on the difference between literal and inferential questions. Results indicated that the strategy helped to improve students' responses to questions. (SRT)

Assesses the influence of grade and reading competence on inner-city Black children's sequence memory and use of organization in recall. Suggests that primary teachers should shift from literal decoding practice to providing semantic organizers and emphasizing interrelationships between words. The development of such basic cognitive skills…

It has been customary to simplify texts to increase their readability for young readers. Recent studies suggest that it is the predictability of texts that is the key to their readability and that simplification may actually create problems for the reader. (RBW)

Reviews a study designed to determine whether some of the problems of poor readers are related to inadequately developed story schemata or the inability to use schemata. Discusses the need for teaching strategies to enhance children's knowledge of story structure. (RBW)

Prepared as part of the Extended School Services Program in Kentucky, this paper provides information on how to help students become more proficient readers. The paper begins with a discussion of what reading is, the characteristics of a "good" reader (strategic, motivated, and independent), and beginning readers. It then discusses a few…

A study investigated the use of graphic organizers in classrooms--specifically examined was the use of graphic organizers as visual and organizational tools to facilitate student comprehension of expository text. Subjects consisted of 107 kindergarten through eighth-grade teachers (both regular and special educators) teaching in rural and urban…

This collection reflects the stance that a truly balanced approach to reading instruction will focus not only on reading but on literacy; integrate language and literacy across disciplines; attend to reading, writing, and other skills and strategies in context; and reflect a coherent integration of as broad a research base as possible. Following a…

Part of a basic training series, this booklet describes creating a Reading Coaches (tm) session based on the simple concept of reading good books with children while engaging them in conversation about the book. The booklet notes that exemplary practices found in the SLICE-CORPS program (an AmeriCorps program) were synthesized to develop the…

Part of a basic training series, this booklet describes presenting a Reading Coaches (tm) session based on the simple concept of reading good books with children while engaging them in conversation about the book. The booklet notes that exemplary practices found in the SLICE-CORPS program (an AmeriCorps program) were synthesized to develop the…

Noting that the role of phonics in learning to read is hotly debated, this book speaks to educators who seek to establish sound instructional practice that values phonics as an important tool for understanding and using written language within a balanced, comprehensive program for reading and writing. It explains what phonics is and the…