Teachers can potentially address reading comprehension deficits in a content area, such as science, by using the students in their classrooms as resources. We examined the effects of a class-wide partner reading intervention with science reading materials on a measure of content comprehension skills. A total of 65 fourth-grade students and 61…

Although several different reading fluency intervention approaches appear promising for adolescents who are struggling readers, few studies have directly compared various approaches. The purpose of this study was twofold: 1) to determine the relative effects of word-oriented, fluency-oriented, comprehension-oriented, and multi-component…

Details how a fifth-grade teacher implemented Roger Farr's "Think-Along" strategy for developing metacognitive reading strategies for use with the novel "Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes" by Eleanor Coerr. (SR)

This study describes the synthesis of the cloze technique with story-mapping techniques resulting in the Cloze Story Map (CSM) and tests the immediate and long-term usefulness of CSM with both expository and narrative texts. Results are discussed. (Author/MT)

Notes that people's voices telling their own stories is the only true connection to the past. Describes how in their teachers' writing group, they listen to each others' stories. Considers how they offer support to each other when lessons fall flat and celebrate when they share the children's wonderful products. (SG)

Describes the learning process of a teacher working to make creative-drama teaching strategies part of her teaching repertoire. Investigates how a drama specialist works with that teacher to develop creative drama learning experiences. Finds that creative drama can be incorporated within constraints of time and curriculum, and can be structured so…

Describes an activity used with fifth graders to keep the children using new vocabulary acquired during a shared literature study. (PRA)

Discusses research the author undertook with a class of fifth graders, in which they read and discussed popular series books. Shares examples of their talk about the topic and what that talk reveals about the potential of the classroom as a space to reveal, complicate, and challenge gendered assumptions about what is desirable or appropriate…

Shares how one teacher used literature to extend her fifth graders' multicultural knowledge of African-American culture. Discusses how fiction and nonfiction books were coupled with a literature-based basal program and integrated into existing classroom themes to provide a natural impetus for meaningful individual and group dialogue about other…

Responds to William Bigelow's 1989 article which was being used in a fifth grade classroom. Questions the approach taken by the teacher and focuses on how children can be most productively involved in the kind of critical reading Bigelow advocates. Discusses the use of "I-Charts" (inquiry charts) to foster critical reading. (MG)

Describes how two fifth-grade boys developed and sustained a love of fantasy books. Describes how these two discriminating readers have developed taste and a social context for their reading experience. Shows how their experience demonstrates important principles about reading and about reading curriculum. (SR)

A study investigated whether reading instruction that emphasizes critical thinking would benefit "learning-disabled" fifth-grade students. Seven students were assigned to an instructional group that participated in a program of 10 dialogical-thinking reading lessons and 7 were assigned to a comparison group that remained with the…

A study compared the relative effectiveness of a direct instruction method for finding the main idea in a text with a method that combined direct instruction with a checklist that encouraged the students to monitor their application of the main idea strategy. Subjects, 56 fifth-graders at a suburban elementary school, were divided into one of…

A study investigated the effects of goal setting on children's self-efficacy and skillful performance during reading comprehension instruction. Subjects, 17 fourth graders and 16 fifth graders from one elementary school, had regularly received remedial reading comprehension instruction. Subjects were administered a pretest consisting of a…

A study investigated the effectiveness of teaching children how to take reading comprehension tests. Twenty-eight fifth grade students were pretested using the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test, Survey D, Form I. The students were tested on speed and accuracy, vocabulary, and comprehension. Students were given 30 minutes of daily instruction and…