This study examined three teachers' responses to professional development initiatives designed to support them in integrating literacy strategies with their social studies curriculum. Data from participant observation, interviews, archival records, and email exchanges provided insights regarding participants' efforts to weave together literacy…

This case study of reading activity in third-grade bilingual classrooms at a state-sanctioned "successful" school examines the influences of the California accountability framework--Proposition 227, No Child Left Behind, and the federal Reading First program--on shifting beliefs and practices around what "counts" as reading.…

This descriptive study looked at the provision of differentiated language arts instruction for gifted students by means of whole language instruction approaches in regular classes. Two classrooms in each of two elementary schools were identified as exemplary whole language classrooms and each contained several students identified for school gifted…

Identifies factors, both helpful and obstructive, influencing teachers' transition from basal to a whole-language curriculum. Observations from two first-grade classrooms and interviews with school principals and two classroom teachers (one whole-language veteran and the other in transition into whole language) are evaluated. (GLR)

Teaching is by nature a complex activity filled with ambiguities and dilemmas. Teaching also is fundamentally a moral activity, making the dilemmas and ambiguities both pedagogical and moral in nature. This article describes one teacher's reflections on her efforts to resolve the dilemmas and ambiguities presented to her by the competing…

The case study presented in this paper describes the thinking-in-action of a first grade teacher who, within the natural setting of her classroom, was constructing a new way of teaching language arts by changing to a whole language approach. In contrast to traditional implementation models, this study highlights the constitutive nature of…

In this age of greater accountability, local school districts within the USA increasingly use summer school programs as an intervention service to provide students who have failed to meet classroom, district, or state performance requirements with the opportunity to "catch up." Although such programs attempt to provide varying types of…