During the past three years, the author has been exploring Grade 5 students' processes of reading and understanding contemporary picturebooks with Radical Change characteristics and metafictive devices, and examining how students use their knowledge of these characteristics and devices to create their own texts. "The Stinky Cheese Man and Other…

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to analyze the historical development of HRD knowledge. The analysis aims to use the qualitative research technique of text deconstruction on an important management text from the human relations phase of organization theory. Deconstruction is not a common method to HRD. In this paper, HRD scholars…

A significant gap in emerging literacy intervention with preschoolers relates to a skill that is crucial to later reading comprehension-the ability to engage in inferencing. This article presents a theoretical rationale for fostering inferential language during book sharing with preschool children, and provides research-based ideas for how this…

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between children's use of reading strategies and language cues while reading and their comprehension after reading two texts: "Cherries and Cherry Pits" (Williams, 1986) and "There's Something in My Attic" (Mayer, 1988). The data were drawn from a larger study of the…

This article examines how drama education strategies enrich children's understanding and excitement of a story before they read, preparing them for a deeper exploration and appreciation of the story. Following a book's basic storyline, drama strategies guide children through an honest, spontaneous enactment of a story's key events without…

In recent years effective instruction in reading for learners with physical and educational disabilities has received great attention in the schools. However, instruction in the corollary skill of writing has received considerably less emphasis. This review paper notes that through the use of assistive technology, students with a variety of…

"Theologizing with children" has arisen from influences of philosophizing with children, from research in the Piagetian tradition and also from the interest of the Evangelical Church in Germany to "change to the child's perspective". It searches for the theological quality of children's remarks which are considered to be a…

This case study closely examines how John (a former student of mine, age eight, second grade) composed during an informal writing group at school. Using qualitative research methods, I found that John selectively took up conventions, characters, story grammars, themes, and motifs from video games, television, Web pages, and comics. Likening his…

The article examines issues in the narrative evaluation of language disordered children. First, it is pointed out that the many types of stories and contexts affect narrative form and, second, that structural systems which contribute to narrative meaning are found both within and across utterance boundaries. (Author/DB)

The effects of using the Embedded Story-Structure (ESS) Routine in a literature course were investigated. A heterogeneous group of 79 ninth graders, including 14 students with LD, were randomly assigned to one of two conditions, with instruction occurring in groups of 12 to 14 students in general education literature classes over a nine-day…

Students who are deaf or hard of hearing typically lack descriptors in their written expression. Visual tools are often used in the classroom with this population, without empirical support. This study used a single-subject changing criterion design in an attempt to fill the gap between practice and research. The purpose was to test the use of a…

Contemporary academic fiction features a plethora of characters, male and female, identified by a bodily defect or medical malady as a primary character trait. These representations of the damaged college professor have joined other popular academic stereotypes, such as the absent-minded professor, the lecherous professor, and the sadistic…

In this paper, individuals with no background in cognitive psychology are provided an introduction to the cognitivists' concepts of prototypes, schemata, and superordinate relations. A prototype is a most-typical instance, a composite, or an average of items in a particular set and serves as a mental representation of the set. A schema, script, or…

Suggests using story maps as a direct technique for teaching students the elements of stories: setting, plot, mood, and theme. (MG)

This annotated filmography includes titles selected for entertainment value, availability, and either the employment of a major character by a library, or at least one scene involving a major character in a library setting that is critical to the forward movement of the plot. (Contains 1 endnote.)