Waterford Early Reading Program[TM] is a software-based curriculum for students in Kindergarten through second grade. The curriculum is designed to promote reading, writing, and typing, incorporating literacy skills such as letter mastery, language stories, spelling, basic writing skills, reading and listening development, and comprehension…

Proper placement of students into either remedial writing or Composition I can be crucial to their success in higher education. Using a database of nearly 6,000 students who entered an open admissions community college in Texas, the researchers attempted to discover the best predictor of student success in Composition I. For students who took a…

A study focused attention on the academic personas acquired by two AAVE-oriented (African American Vernacular English) beginning writers as reflected by their speech in informal settings and the style they employed in academic tasks. The study explores the degree to which literacy experiences (home and school) affect students' lives. It was guided…

Delineating the content that must be covered in the secondary schools of the State of Idaho, this guide presents a course of study for teaching English language arts for success in the workplace. Although educators sometimes use the terms interchangeably, the course of study in the guide is not an instructional or curriculum guide--it prescribes…

For many years, Arizona State University (ASU) allowed its basic writers into its standard English (ENG) 101 course, only after they took ENG 071, a remedial class offered by a local community college. However, it soon became obvious to English Department faculty that the remedial grammar-focused class was not giving this group of students the…

In 1996, New Jersey's Hudson County Community College (HCCC) participated in the American Association of Community Colleges' Exploring America's Communities project, works to strengthen the teaching and learning of American history, literature, and culture at U.S. community colleges. The primary goal of HCCC's project was to provide reading…

Two models of literacy stand in contrast to one another. The first, termed the "autonomous model" by British anthropologist Brian Street, portrays literacy as a value-free, technical skill which effects uniformly positive changes in both individuals and societies. The "ideological model," in contrast, focuses on specific social…

Language interference (which was originally posited in ESL theory) involves ways in which language learners draw upon previous language experiences to fill holes in their knowledge of a second language they are learning. Since the 1970s, language interference has been a part of the pedagogy of basic writing, concerning itself with ways that basic…

This document contains 61 poems, short stories, and personal reflections that were selected from more than 300 entries submitted by adult literacy students throughout Ohio. The works included are as follows: "The Apartment" (Shirley Pettit); "The Last Poem Before I Die" (Lonnie Littleton); "A Family Lost" (Mary Rapp);…

When teaching writing to adult learners, teachers must achieve a balance between "content" and "mechanics." The first step is to assign "real" writing for "real" purposes. The next step is to teach the writing process more than the product and teach the place that correct "mechanics" (spelling,…

Argues that few new techniques for teaching remedial writing courses work. Suggests that learning styles, a research-based teaching approach, has demonstrated statistically significant results. Explains that learning styles aims to provide learning strategies that are compatible with individual learners. Reports on two experiments conducted at an…

Describes a revised developmental study skills course offering integrated instruction in critical thinking, reading, and writing strategies. Daily journal writing, reading lessons, library research, and a final oral and written report led to higher motivation, comprehension, and thinking levels than experienced by previous years' students. (DMM)

Describes and evaluates the effectiveness of an individualized Writing Lab module, developed to prepare students enrolled in Savannah State College's Developmental Studies English Fundamentals classes for the post-Collegiate Placement Examination. The module uses instructor-authored, computer-assisted instruction to provide immediate feedback on…

Presents preliminary results from a continuing study of academic locus of control (ALOC). Describes ALOC differences between development/nondevelopmental students, males/females, and based on class status and number of developmental courses taken. Reveals a more highly developed sense of internal control among nondevelopmental students. Includes…

Describes a study conducted to determine whether the relationships between reading and writing can serve as the basis of a functional pedagogy to improve the reading comprehension of academically underprepared college students. The study also examined the effects of integrated reading and writing instruction on students' skills and attitudes. (PAA)