Describes an effort to improve reading attitudes of Native student teachers during field center participation in the University of British Columbia's Native Indian Teacher Education Program through a developmental reading course requiring a daily 20-30 minute uninterrupted, sustained silent reading period. Evaluation shows significant positive…

Less is known about how children read connected text in silent reading, and the range of reading strategies used in an ordinary primary school classroom, than about the reading of single words, oral reading and reading by skilled adults. This paper describes and evaluates a method of testing children's silent reading in which they are their own…

With increased attention to teacher quality and student achievement, it's important to have an understanding of literacy policy and to envision how teachers might teach literacy differently in the future. In this book, Jacqueline Edmondson addresses key questions of critical policy study to provide understanding about how and why literacy is…

Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) has been around in various forms for over 40 years. While this subject has received much study in elementary schools, the influence of SSR on typical, non-at-risk high school students' reading habits appears to be lacking. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of SSR on ninth grade students' recreational…

To understand the capacity of middle and high schools to support reading, a study examined two questions: (1) How do middle/high schools organize and allocate resources to support reading? and (2) How do middle/high schools respond to resource and structural challenges created by the multiple institutional actors that comprise the school system?…

Six contributors suggest ways to (1) improve handwriting, (2) help children choose reading materials, (3) develop sight vocabulary, (4) use phonics with ESL learners, (5) use Uninterrupted Sustained Silent Reading, and (6) teach reading comprehension. (FL)

Compares the reading comprehension and accuracy and listening comprehension of West Indian and English children living in England and having equivalent intellectual abilities. Finds no significant differences between the cultural groups. (FL)

Results of a study in which four instructional methods (involving different amounts of preparation and guidance in reading short stories) were used with 48 seventh-grade students demohstrate that it is possible to simultaneously prepare able and less able readers for discussion of the same story. Reading attitudes were also assessed in the study.…

Describes strategies one elementary school used to improve the reading and writing skills of a group of low-performing second-grade students, including scaffolding, modeling, needs-based instruction, book-rich environment, cross-age reading, books shared with family members, and student motivation. (PKP)

Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) of silent reading fluency using the maze task has been shown to be a useful tool for evaluating students' silent reading skills. No prior research has evaluated whether the source of the maze passages has a relationship with the obtained reading scores. Prior research with CBM of oral reading fluency (ORF) has…

This report describes a program for increasing levels of leisure time reading and heightened awareness of age and ability appropriate literature with an effort to encourage targeted students in grades 2, 3, and 6 to become lifelong readers. The targeted population lives in a growing rural, low to upper middle class community located in north…

A study examined the effect of sustained silent reading and writing on the reading achievement, writing, and reading attitude of students reading two or more years below grade level. Subjects, 97 seventh graders and 104 eighth graders enrolled in a semi-rural, predominantly black, lower socioeconomic status, Southeastern school district, were…

The reading diagnosis tests and observations in this book provide a systematic way of gathering information about a student. The first 10 chapters test the following: (1) general reading level through oral reading of graded paragraphs; (2) silent reading comprehension; (3) phonics skills through oral reading of nonsense words and phoneme grapheme…

Recent discoveries about the whole brain seem to call for a holistic approach to learning, one in which educators would teach the whole person, including physical and emotional states as well as cognitive abilities. Three holistic techniques are particularly relevant to education: (1) biofeedback; (2) yoga; and (3) the Lozanov method. Biofeedback…

Descriptions of language learning and reading behaviors are presented, in this paper, within the context of a model of cognitive processing that reflects a continuum for the logical procession of language skills in human maturation and learning. Portions of the paper differentiate silent and oral reading in terms of cognitive load, which is a…