The two-year goal of the Diagnostic-Prescriptive-Individualized Primary Reading Program (DPI) is to cut in half the deficit between the national norms and actual achievement scores of the pupils as measured by the California Achievement Tests at the first and second grade levels and the California Test of Basic Skills at the third grade level. As…

Indicates that teachers should review their attitudes and skills when supporting parents and their learning-delayed children. Discusses how, although parents express concern about their children's reading progress, they are repeatedly told that the child will grow out of it. (AEW)

Reports on a study in which a seven-year-old girl was trained to focus on individual words in learning to read. (FL)

This inservice professional development module, part of the Alabama Reading Initiative, presents research summaries, notes for presenters, and activities. The Oral Language and Vocabulary module elaborates on a student's comprehension of text as it relates to the overlap between the student's system of language and the author's system of language.…

Designed to assist literacy volunteers, this handbook explains specific ways to guide a young child's successful journey into literacy. The handbook includes 10 specific ways of working with children, with guides and suggestions for each; many book lists, including multicultural titles at several grade levels; concrete suggestions; sample lesson…

This book offers suggestions to help parents make their children successful readers and learners. The first chapter, Getting Started, discusses setting an example, being a tutor, creating a positive environment, and letting children be the stars. The second chapter, The Reading Process: Building Meaning, discusses setting a purpose, stages of the…

This study describes a program designed to improve reading achievement. The targeted population consisted of primary and middle school students in two communities in northern Illinois. Both communities were suburbs of a major metropolitan area and the status of family incomes ranged from low to middle levels. Evidence for the existence of the…

This report describes a program to improve student reading achievement of the targeted first, second, and third grade classes in two west central Illinois schools. More than half of each schools' population was identified as low-income. Evidence for the existence of reading problems included student surveys, oral reading rubrics, phonemic…

Describes a reworking of a Title 1 program in Lake Forest, Delaware schools, to eliminate first grade retention due to substandard level of reading ability. The process included: (1) making reading fun; (2) new reading material; (3) parental participation; (4) scheduled reading time; (5) reading requirements; and (6) teachers' aides in classrooms.…

A total of 125 7-year-old students who were poor readers were assigned to 1 of 4 experimental teaching conditions: reading with phonology, reading alone, phonology alone, or a control. Although the phonology alone group showed the most improvement on phonological tasks, the reading with phonology group made the most progress in reading…

Four experiments with 23 second graders in Haifa (Israel) tested the hypothesis that comprehension gains in fast-paced reading are attributable primarily to changes in short-term memory (STM) functioning. Results confirm the hypothesis, providing support for a causal role of STM functioning in text processing. (SLD)

In an exploratory project to enrich the reading experiences of 84 rural low-income first-graders, 15 female community members were trained to work with children in nontraditional and traditional activities that addressed reading-related skills. Student achievement test scores improved from exceptionally low reading achievement in the fall to…

Describes the "Three for the Road" reading program which sends children home with a backpack containing specific sets of books, activity suggestions, and materials (puppets, a response journal, and writing materials). Elaborates theoretical foundations of the program, tells how to implement it, and shares examples of first graders' and their…

Describes "Start Making a Reader Today" (SMART), a volunteer tutoring program that helps K-2 students at risk of reading difficulties. Finds that the program improved students' word reading, reading fluency, and word comprehension, though level of performance at end of second grade was still much lower than that of average-achieving…

Suggests that teachers should provide text that supports students' changing interactions with text as they move from learning about print and how it works, to the labors of learning to decode, and on to growing independence and fluency. Highlights effective uses of simple predictable text, transitional text, decodable text, easy readers, and…