Children living in disenfranchised communities are at risk for growing up without developing the literacy skills they need to succeed and thrive later in life. The ability to read proficiently is a prerequisite for engagement in a myriad of meaningful occupations, financial success, and optimal health management. This set of practice guidelines…

A common, long-held belief of teachers and parents is that "the more you read, the better you read." Because many students either did not choose to read at home or did not have books at home, schools began to provide independent reading time in the classroom. As the years progressed, more and more requirements were added into English…

Can students read difficult but self-selected texts--and if so, how? In this article we describe what we learned about middle school students' use of background knowledge and specific vocabulary from interviews and surveys in our longitudinal study of magazine reading habits. Then we discuss the implications of these findings for structuring…

Teachers, parents, and librarians are constantly looking for methods and materials that engage students as readers and motivate them to increase the time they spend reading. In this article we describe findings from a study of middle schoolers' magazine reading habits that gave us a close look at the power of magazines as supplemental supports for…

The main task of practice teaching of English Reading is to train students' independent reading ability and good reading habits. Extra-curricular reading of English literature and English newspapers and magazines plays an active role in improving English reading ability. The principle of selecting reading materials, the scope of selection and the…

Practice is important in learning, maintaining, or improving any skills. Studies by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) show that students perform better when they do independent reading. In order to be a good reader, a person must practice reading, but reading practice declines markedly after fifth grade. Educators and parents…

Independent reading is a necessary adjunct to a school reading program. If caried out with commitment, it can greatly influence students' lifetime reading habits. Unfortunately, today's educators are so involved with reading instruction and competency testing that independent or recreational reading may become a lost art. This paper asserts that…

Describes the Young Hoosier Book Award program, which is designed to promote voluntary reading. Notes that schools across Indiana are deeply impoverished in terms of literacy resources for students and that school libraries are chronically underfunded and are in dire straits. (RS)

Describes the successful implementation in a Georgia elementary school of the Reading Millionaires Project, a reading incentive program to promote recreational reading and to create student interest in reading. (SR)

This study collected data via a three-page questionnaire administered to active readers 8 to 12 years old and half-hour taped interviews. Questionnaire findings (general information, interests, recent reading, information network), interview findings (book experience, reading taste, libraries, help in reading material selection, lists, reviews,…

Describes a reading motivation project with a class of fourth-grade students. Shows how the project incorporated strategies shown to promote engagement in literacy: opportunities for choice, reflection, and social interaction. Describes the use of metacognitive activities where students set weekly goals and reflected upon how they were growing as…

Primary-grade teachers face an important challenge: teaching children how to read while enabling them to build good habits so they fall in love with reading. Many teachers find the independent reading workshop to be the component of reading instruction that meets this challenge because it makes it possible to teach the reading skills and…

Describes the origin and evolution of a course to meet the needs of gifted independent readers. (JL)

The development of a self-instruction package on making notes from reading which was designed for new students at Newcastle Polytechnic in the United Kingdom is described. Notemaking skills involve recognition of topics and topic sentences in a written text, picking out key content words in the text, recognition of key relationships and…

Outlines a major literacy initiative for urban children taking place in the Dallas, Texas Public Schools. Describes several different programs at the school district level aimed at family and community outreach, in order to create a literacy-education support system with primary care givers in the homes. (SR)