This paper reports the process of designing and partially implementing and evaluating a content-based and genre-oriented syllabus with a group of ninth graders at a public school in Barranquilla, Colombia. The syllabus sought to promote reading strategies in order to improve learners' comprehension of natural science texts. The results of this…

With illiteracy in the United States at a staggering rate, school districts are spending more and more instructional dollars searching for intervention programs to address students' reading deficits. While, in the past, school districts have received funds through various state funding sources, the financial forecast for school districts is no…

Over 50% of American public school students read below average literacy levels. Recent research suggests that oral and print-based high school curriculum instruction require an infusion of electronic educational technology (EET), such as computer programs, online instruction, electronic thesaurus, and other devices, to better serve student need…

Unfortunately, little is known about school-based interventions that address the needs of struggling adolescent readers. To help fill these gaps in knowledge and to provide evidence-based guidance to practitioners, the U.S. Department of Education initiated the Enhanced Reading Opportunities (ERO) Study--a demonstration and random assignment…

Three reading skills programs were developed as part of one school system's attempt to increase the reading achievement scores of its ninth graders. The first program was designed to establish interdisciplinary and teaching and collaborative learning techniques among the teachers in the "Ninth Grade Academy." The second program involved…

Reports on a study that examined whether students' comprehension and recall of an expository passage would improve if they were given information about the organization of the passage before they read it. (HOD)

Effects of a speed reading course on ninth-grade girls were studied at intervals of 3 and 6 months after completion of the course. The Perceptive Reading and Study Skills Course was administered to 94 students, and progress was evaluated using the Nelson-Denny Reading Tests. Results indicated that significant improvements in speed and…

A practicum was designed to solve the problem of the lack of desire to read and the poor quality of the reading of 65 inner city underachieving basic skills students. Objectives were to increase motivation to read among the students and to improve the quality of their oral, silent, and reading comprehension skills. Incentives for reading enjoyment…

A total of 194 students, eight intact classes of ninth and tenth graders, were examined for changes in their writing skills after it was determined that significant changes in reading skills had occurred in the experimental groups (four of the eight classes). When the writing samples were analyzed for overall quality, syntactic density, T-unit…

The purpose of this study was to increase students' ability to locate specific information and to distinguish between facts and opinions, major ideas and minor details, and favorable and unfavorable statements in reading a newspaper. A workbook containing a minimum of ten exercises, a mastery skill sheet, and six supplementary exercises in each…

Four experimental reading-treatment classes (n=94) and four control classes (n=100) wrote pre- and post-compositions which were evaluated for overall quality, syntactic density, T-unit length, productivity, and selected grammatical errors. Analysis of results found significant differences in reading skills but no differences in writing skills. The…

Describes a one-semester ninth grade developmental reading class that includes speed reading, study, and test-taking strategies. Provides a rate building and study skills bibliography. (HOD)

Reading is an essential part of science literacy, yet teachers often face challenges in incorporating reading in science classrooms. In this article, the authors share how they brought reading back into their science classrooms. They designed four quarterly reading projects with yearlong literacy routines that they used successfully with their…