In this article the author suggests that tutoring has helped students to become more organized, self-assured, and proficient at identifying relationships between ideas. Successful tutoring requires: (1) at least one attentive adult who has the time to speak with students about academic matters, personal problems, and the importance of performing…

Presents guidelines for implementing a district-wide reading improvement system, gleaned from the experiences of the Detroit school system. (ET)

Describes the success of the Shared Book Experience with a GED class of inner-city adults. (SR)

A study implemented and evaluated the Book Buddies model using National Service volunteers as tutors for high-risk first-grade students in a high-poverty urban setting. Using a design with a randomly assigned control group, results show that tutoring sessions produced clear effects. Children who received 40 Book Buddies lessons significantly…

Describes a "Saturday Reading Club" that was implemented in an urban school for early elementary school children for the purpose of promoting literacy. Notes that the literature-based project used trained university volunteers. Suggests that the club had a positive influence on children's interest in books, reading comprehension, and…

This study sought to determine the effectiveness of a remedial reading program conducted in a large city school district over a five-year span of time. There were 200 students in the experimental group and 200 students in the control group. Stanford Achievement Test stanine scores were obtained at the beginning fourth-grade level for all subjects…

In order to discover whether there were any inner-city elementary schools in Massachusetts which were successful in teaching children to read, a two-year study was undertaken. Results of the study, reported in this document, showed that there is no one pattern for success but that there is a process by which schools, either alone or in…

The Instructional Materials Center (IMC) originated in association with the development of a course to train teachers in specific techniques for teaching reading and the use of a wide range of multisensory reading materials. The major objective of the IMC project was to supply teachers with a wide variety of useful instructional materials for…

This quarterly newsletter covers educational issues affecting schools in WestEd's 4-state region (Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah) and nationwide. This Summer 1999 edition contains a lead article entitled "Reading for Understanding: A Modern Urban Success Story," which describes a course in "academic literacy," developed…

A study examined the effect of extended use of computers on reading achievement. The study population consisted of 75 seventh-grade students at the J. N. Thorp Elementary School located in a predominantly low income socio-economic neighborhood of South Chicago. Of this total, 15 students were subjected to an intensive computer assisted instruction…

This document summarizes a report on the implementation and impact of instructional strategies to improve students' comprehension skills at three diverse urban secondary schools. While activities and characteristics varied, educators at all three locations were implementing local variations of a school-improvement approach based on the use of the…

This report describes in depth the implementation and impact of instructional strategies to improve students' comprehension skills at three diverse urban secondary schools. While activities and characteristics varied, educators at all three locations were implementing local variations of a school-improvement approach based on the use of the…

A study was conducted to determine if the use of reading games or activities would cause greater improvement in the reading achievement scores of third grade low-achieving students in an urban school than would traditional instructional methods. A control group of five children received traditional reading instruction, while an experimental group…

One of the major concerns of the First National City Bank's Public Affairs Committee is the cost and quality of urban education. The Bank's Regional Economics Section inquired into various aspects of public education in New York City. While the study is considered as a tentative exploration of a complex subject, questions concerning businessmen…

This study compares average SAT 9 reading scores of second through fifth grade English-only children in schools using "Open Court" (a program for teaching young children to read) with the scores of comparable schools using non-scripted programs in one very large urban school district in California. Findings show that schools using…