Argues that "love of reading" should be listed as the top goal of the English curriculum, but that teaching the classics has the opposite effect. Argues that reading and analytical skills can be taught using contemporary teenage fiction that holds students' interest, helps them feel understood, and teaches them about life. Lists numerous books…

Interviewed 311 four- to 9-year-olds of various cultures to explore how they perceived and experienced activities, roles, responsibilities, and relationships with peers and teachers in school. Found that school created conflict in terms of competing demands of pleasing teachers versus pleasing oneself. Liking school was associated with enjoying…

Since the significant report "Becoming a Nation of Readers: The Report of the Commission on Reading" (Anderson, Hiebert, Scott, and Wilkinson 1985), more attention has been given to the need to motivate and encourage reading in addition to teaching reading skills. That report concluded that the best predictor of reading comprehension, vocabulary…

The Education Watch initiative is being implemented in the Solomon Islands by the Coalition on Education Solomon Islands (COESI) in partnership with Asian South Pacific Bureau of Adult Education (ASPBAE). COESI aims to generate a reliable body of information that will: (1) Accurately explain how much the national government has done and can do to…

This qualitative study examined the attitudes and interests of 284 gifted readers in grades 6, 7, and 8. Students were from a high socioeconomic status, suburban school district in the midwestern United States and were either identified as gifted or had a history of involvement in a program for the gifted. Data collection instruments included a…

One approach to helping children to become literate is to use good children's literature in the classroom. Children's trade books are now available on a variety of topics. Many of them are traditional stories, but more authors are also writing historical fiction, biographies, and science books. This variety of materials allows the teacher to use…

A study examined a program for implementing a reader's workshop to improve low reading skills. Subjects were first-, second-, and third-grade students in a suburb of a large midwestern city. The problem of low reading skills was observed and documented in grade 1 through a sight word assessment and a 3-part writing assessment which included a…

This practicum was designed to improve the attendance rate for African American male students in the After School Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) program. The attendance rate for male students was far below that of female students. The following strategies to increase male participation in the reading program were developed: local businesses and…

This book presents three narrative forms and two expository forms of an analytical reading inventory (ARI) that evaluates the processing strategies readers use as they read. Designed to be used as an individual analysis, the ARI presented in the book can help identify the reader's general level of word recognition; word recognition strengths and…

A literature-based approach across the curriculum helps students to personalize content-area curricula, to enjoy reading a diversity of subject-matter materials, and to improve attitudes toward reading. Teachers, supervisors, and administrators can cooperatively support literature-based practice across the curriculum by creating a positive…

A diagnostic evaluation was conducted on Thomas, a fifth-grade student, to identify levels of reading and major word identification strategies. Initial testing conducted at Thomas' home revealed that he appeared to have an unusually positive attitude toward reading, considering the difficulties it had presented him since kindergarten. Learning…

Sixty-three fifth-grade children completed daily activity diaries indicating how they spent their non-school time for 15 days. From these diaries, estimates of the minutes per day that were spent in various activities were derived. The estimate of book-reading time from the activity diary correlated with new measures of individual differences in…

A study examined the effectiveness of an immersion-in-literacy program in a first-grade classroom. Six of the 22 students (all six were boys) indicated on a reading attitude survey that they did not like to read books. The classroom teacher set up her classroom so that it fostered literacy development. Some of the experiences and activities she…

The purpose of this study was to determine the reading interests of the young adult participants in the summer reading program at Medina County District Library (Ohio). Findings were compared to research done in other locations and to current bibliographies of recommended reading for young adults. The study looked at a systematic sample of reader…

The effects of an integrated language arts instructional program on reading comprehension skills of learning lab students were examined using the Analytical Reading Inventory, and their attitudes toward recreational and academic reading were assessed using the Elementary Reading Attitude Survey. Subjects were at-risk fifth and sixth grade…