This semiotically informed article problematizes the concept of literacy as an aesthetic activity rather than reading skills and offers strategies for assessing young readers' understanding of fictional texts. Although not based on empirical research, the essay refers to and theorizes from extensive field studies of children's responses to…

Four literacy experts lay out the evidence in this compelling book, based on the well-known Home-School Study of Language and Literacy Development that inspired the landmark resource "Beginning Literacy with Language." Following a group of children living in low-income families from preschool through high school, the authors charted the students'…

Teaching phonemic awareness can be boring and repetitive in the hands of a teacher who wishes to just use a workbook approach. This delightful book packs loads of fun into 75 lesson plans, providing educators with myriad creative strategies for integrating word study with children's picture books. Each lesson includes a read-aloud book…

Suggesting that schools can provide valuable reading and writing practice for their students through the implementation of a school post office program, this booklet describes the United States Postal Service's "Wee Deliver" program and provides some materials to get the program started. Participants may model their school after a town…

Defines literacy as the ability to make good-mannered sense in reading and writing to the satisfaction of those in power with respect to the task at hand. Lists educational essentials necessary to produce a literate populace, offers a critique of current schools, and recommends an experiential approach to teaching reading and writing. (AEA)

A number of issues must be considered if those in the profession are to construct a theoretically and pedagogically sound definition of literacy as a word and a concept. The profession agrees that literacy is the encoding and decoding of meaning, but there is little agreement on the term "meaning." Sociolinguists define literacy as a cluster of…

Describes the GENRP Model of Instruction in which students generate (G) relevant ideas from prior knowledge, elaborate (E) with information, and use nonredundant processing (NRP) techniques to organize concepts. Claims the method actively involves students, teaches basic literacy, and develops reading and social studies comprehension and…

Describes a powerful combination of technology and teaching in Orange County, Florida, that has raised the reading scores of struggling students by as much as two grade levels each year. The project features an interactive software system and a literacy workshop model. It strives to help students overcome two common problems: lack of reading…

The essays contained in this document, which launches the University of Georgia Education Initiative, attempt to address Georgia's need for increased literacy in realistic and constructive terms. Taken together, these essays constitute an agenda for action--a challenge to all those who wish to provide Georgians with the quality education they…

This volume presents approaches and strategies for integrating literacy acquisition into social studies content and processes, for deepening student understanding of the social sciences, and for motivating students to read and write in the social studies class. The book is intended to be a teachers' reference tool for planning creative and…

Discusses the literacy problems caused by teaching reading and writing separately and by teaching in isolation the skills required in these two processes. (HTH)

Recommends using literature to increase elementary school children's interest in reading and to provide them with forms and patterns for writing. (FL)

Designed for use at school or at home, this book focuses on the development of seven types of literacy: linguistic, visual, mathematical, scientific, geographic, economic, and computer. The book's suggested activities are each introduced with a detailed discussion of the necessary prerequisite skills, the concepts to be mastered, the materials…

This book offers strategies to help educators become increasingly effective in teaching various areas in content area reading and learning. The book includes the following chapters: "Content Area Reading: A Historical Perspective" (E. Dishner and M. Olson); "Content Area Reading: Current State of the Art" (T. Bean and J.…

According to a National Assessment of Educational Progress report, most American school children have mastered reading and writing fundamentals without learning how to analyze, evaluate, and extend ideas they read and write about. To address this "surface understanding" problem, the report recommends literacy programs aimed at high risk…