This paper reports the first part of a 2-year longitudinal study, which examined the impact of age of entry to school on the reading development of 60 summer-born boys during Key Stage One. The sample was drawn from 18 schools in six Local Education Authorities operating different admissions policies. Thirty-one had attended nursery part-time,…

The relationship between home and school is often raised in public discussion about boys' education as an aspect of boys' overall lower achievement in school, and particularly in literacy, relative to girls. A critical review of two influential Australian and one UK government commissioned reports into boys' education sets the scene for our…

This study reports the perceptions of students and lecturers on the effectiveness of the foreign language instruction in relation to students' academic needs in an English-medium university in Turkey. The theoretical framework of the study draws upon a discourse community (DC) perspective, which considers writing as a socio-cultural practice and…

Ten-year-old students in an experimental group and a control group were tested for metacognitive abilities in reading comprehension before and after implementation of treatment in the experimental group. The teachers of the students in the experimental group were trained in metacognitive strategy instruction and in optimizing instruction time for…

The implication of reading competence in developing reflection and thinking is an important issue for student teachers to consider. Reading is also a competence, in which the language at the disposal of a person is included, to use for social development and mutual understanding. This article is based on a case study and is concerned with how some…

Background: Before the 1990s, an individual or medical model dominated educational research methodology with respect to younger children: the subjects of the research were usually considered untrustworthy sources of information. A subsequent shift towards an ecological model has focused on the child's perspective: however, Lewis and Lindsay have…

The purpose of this research is to study the effects of drama and traditional methods on primary school students' use of reading strategies, on their attitudes toward reading, and on their perceptions of the drama method. A pre- and post-test experimental design with the control group was employed for this study. The drama technique was used in…

Contains selected data from a survey of Norwegian citizens' reading habits and interests. (JT)

This article reports on case study research of seven- and eight-year-old children's discourse about reading. The case studies were selected to provide classrooms in contrasting neighbourhoods within a white "working class" town in the North of England. Mixed methods were employed, but primarily the case studies were ethnographic in…

This article reports a project undertaken in a Caribbean high school among 17 students in a low stream Year 3 class of reluctant readers (mostly boys) who had been experiencing repeated failure. The project, aimed at promoting leisure reading among the adolescents, ran for 16 weeks. During this period, reading materials--mostly those in which the…

The attribution of low literacy levels among Gypsy children to difficulties of access to schools neglects underlying sociocultural explanations. There has been little analysis in reports/studies of Gypsy attitudes toward literacy, nor of outcomes of acquisition. Informed by new literacy theory and by the discourse of previous ethnographic studies,…

To account for the fact that the average reading literacy in Newfoundland and Labrador (Canada) is lower than the national average, a study examined the value that individuals place on literacy. Subjects, 625 males and females, each of whom was a head or one of the heads of households between 21 and 65 years of age and had not participated in an…

The Reading Levels of a population of 93 Spanish deaf students were examined. All study participants had prelingual profound hearing loss; their ages ranged from 9 to 20 years. All were enrolled in compulsory education during 2002-2003 in the Canary Islands (Spain). They were evaluated with sentence and text comprehension subtests from the…

"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." This is a well-known adage with which many are familiar. Children learn it from an early age as they begin to walk, ride their bike, or tie their shoes. Adults repeatedly encourage children by saying, "You can do it! Give it a try! Just try harder!" However, when trying harder…

In 2001, the Australian Centre for Youth Literature released "Young Australians Reading," a report on the reading attitudes of Australia's 10- to 18-year-olds prepared by Woolcott Research, that suggests there is a large body of young people who are waiting for guidance, support, and inspiration if they are to become lifelong readers.…