Concerned about students' poor performance on national tests, one elementary school principal and her staff launched Project READ (Read Exciting Adventures Daily). The program allots 20 minutes daily for schoolwide reading and features home reading contracts, student participation awards, and theme weeks. For one event, the principal dons a…

Responds to letters from readers in response to recent "Research" columns. Deals with the issues of learning disabilities, whole language approach, the "skills" perspective, junk food textbooks, and punctuation. (RS)

Although the vast majority of articles cited by Jeanne Chall and Marie Carbo fit the patched-up program evaluation category, the outcomes of nine randomized field experiments are the best evidence available in the research literature. Systematic phonics is an example of the weak instructional treatments presently plaguing education. Includes 16…

Provides a simple outline of theories addressing orthographic analogies in learning to read. Addresses some misunderstandings of the analogy approach. (RS)

A Maryland school system developed a program called "Students Achieving Independent Learning" (SAIL) to help low-achieving students learn how to read. SAIL helps students become successful readers by showing them steps they can take throughout the reading process to increase their understanding. (13 references) (MLF)

Describes a theory of readers, reading, and text based on an interpretation of one incident involving the author and his daughter. Regards current understandings about readers, reading, and texts not as firm propositions but as fragile potentials. (RS)

Analysis of the on-line reading performance of reading-disabled and nonhandicapped Chinese elementary school students revealed that all readers used various language cues suggesting a universal aspect of reading process, although disabled readers were unable to use spoken speech to understand seemingly disjointed Chinese characters or to decipher…

Because reading for pleasure faces such stiff competition from other activities, one Minnesota elementary principal instituted rewarding and enjoyable reading activities: DEAR (Drop Everything and Read) Time, principal's book club, "I love to read" month, RIOT (Reading Instead of Television) Time, celebrity readers, T-shirt logos, and…

Considers how there is no orthographic analogy effect for words with common end patterns (e.g. beak-peak). Assesses a group of beginning readers' phonological awareness and vocabulary. Indicates that while rime-based analogies seem to be phonological rather than orthographic in nature, beginning readers are able to use an orthographic analogy…

Think-alouds during reading allow teachers to model their thinking by voicing all the things they are noticing, doing, seeing, feeling, and asking as they process the text. Inferencing is essential for students to comprehend a wide variety of texts successfully. This article describes how teachers can use think-alouds to lend their language and…

The development of reading is connected to the development of several habits, habits which once developed, will remain. Some of the habits that will get children reading and instill the habit of reading are: (1) use a book mark; (2) allow kids to read the same book twice; (3) have a dictionary handy and explain its use; (4) have magazines,…

Comparison of third- and sixth-grade students' ability to detect and correct three types of textual inconsistencies (reader-based, text-based, and text structure) embedded in three types of expository discourse revealed that such monitoring was strategic and associated with reading ability and developmental status. (Author/CB)

Provides examples to show how various pre-reading skills can be taught using the student's familiar environment. These skills include form perception, motor control, visual copying, visual recall, completion and closure, visual rhythm, visual sequencing, temporal sequencing, and visual/auditory discrimination. (JN)

Offers suggestions on using underlining as a strategy to help students identify key concepts. (FL)

In this Inquiry Study, participants will explore the process of reading expository texts--the strategies participant/teachers use to make sense of them, and how expository texts are similar to and different from narrative and other types of texts. Participants will then examine aspects of expository texts, such as text structures, vocabulary, and…