Describes the encounters with children experienced by a writer of children's books when she makes school visits. Reflects on how authors' visits to schools positively affect children's interest in reading and writing. (SR)

Argues the field of education has not attended adequately to the literacy learning and development of adolescents; and that the future of adolescent and secondary literacy research is in research that examines the connections between the everyday discourses of adolescents and the academic discourses they navigate each day in school. (RS)

This paper presents a model delineating attributes which enable a literate reader to successfully participate in a pluralistic society. The paper outlines the model as building upon and defining the traditional skills and schema views of reading comprehension which include maturity, attitudes, dispositions, intellectual abilities, knowledge, and…

Describes efforts to promote the desire to read and the availability of materials for Nigerians who have already been introduced to reading. (FL)

Points out that reading has to be made something that those learning to read want to do, now, and in the future, and argues that people who can read should help those who cannot. (EL)

The value and function of reading in modern culture are examined. (JMF)

Discusses three Newbery Award-winning books that can be used to stimulate discussion of reading attitudes and difficulties: "Maniac Magee" (Jerry Spinelli, 1990); "Sign of the Beaver" (Elizabeth Speare, 1983); and "Dicey's Song" (Cynthia Voigt, 1982). (RS)

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,…

In this article, the author relates how he had found solace and diversion in reading aloud while caring for his father who was undergoing chemotherapy. One particular incident left him completely immersed in reading that he did not noticed his father had been awakened from a deep sleep. From those experiences, the author observes how engagement in…

In examining the nature of literacy in ancient Athens, this paper reviews the work of key modern scholars and their positions in the debates concerning the development of literacy in Greece, the oral culture preceeding this, and the technology that enabled it to occur. Following an introduction surveying the viewpoints of Rhys Carpenter, L. H.…

In Portugal, the word "literacy" acquired public importance in October 1995, in the first national literacy assessment report. In the last few years, "reading habits" and not "literacy" became a privileged research object, and it is the amount and kind of reading that is being measured, with the results taken as…

Shared reading involves reading aloud, making a variety of print materials available, and promoting positive attitudes toward literacy. Shared reading experience simulates the bedtime reading experience. It is a happy, secure situation that invites participation by children. Shared reading materials often use enlarged print which allows every…

The author asserts that literacy teacher training programs should design opportunities for teachers to become more reflective about the literate self. Graduate students were queried about the relationship between their personal, historical, and professional literate selves. They documented their memories of reading and considered what it means to…

This conceptual essay critiques current understandings of children's motivation for literacy learning, and argues for a reconceptualization of motivation that centers on the learner as agent in the social construction of meaning. The essay is illustrated with vignettes and examples drawn from two ethnographic studies conducted in whole-language…

The National Language and Literature Development Agency (Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka) in Malaysia promotes literacy and reading through publishing, book promotion, book distribution, extension programs, writing incentives, and maintenance of a special library. The article signals a need for the understanding of reasons why interest in reading has not…