A practicum was designed to motivate children to read and to read for pleasure. Since reading is considered an important part of the daily curriculum of an elementary school and spills over into every discipline taught, reading appears to be a key to success in all curriculum areas. An in-class model for delivering remedial assistance was used…

Providing varying viewpoints on the "state of the art" in content reading from a cadre of authors who have contributed to the expansion of the knowledge base, this book presents preservice and inservice teachers with practical suggestions to use in their classrooms as well as the theoretical bases for these suggestions. The book provides…

Results of two studies that investigated the effects of guest readers on the reading attitudes of second- and fifth-grade children in the Meridian (Mississippi) schools are presented. Twenty-nine second graders and 29 fifth graders participated. Local television personalities, school personnel, former teachers, and parents were among the guests…

A descriptive study used survey methodology to determine first-grade teachers' theoretical orientations toward reading and students' attitudes toward reading, as well as structured classroom observations to describe teachers' reading instructional practices. Subjects, 259 of the 428 first-grade teachers (61%) in 94 elementary schools of a large…

This report describes and evaluates the first year of the "Parents Sharing Books" project, a parent outreach program for Indiana middle and junior high schools. The project focuses on increasing interaction between parents and middle school children with books that they read together, encouraging parents and children to share books and…

A study was conducted to determine the reading habits and attitudes of parents and their children and to determine parents' familiarity with Reading Rainbow (a television program intended to stimulate young children's interest in reading for pleasure) and their attitudes toward the program. A total of 707 questionnaires were completed by parents…

Intended for students who are able to read but lack the motivation to do so because they have not encountered books that speak to their interests and concerns, this revised booklist contains more than 400 titles. The titles represent books of high quality that deal with topics of interest to the average adolescent. Titles and annotations are…

A study investigated kindergarten children's awareness of how they are learning to read at home and in school. Fifty-six children were selected from two schools with contrasting instruction for beginning reading. Children were interviewed in kindergarten and first grade and asked questions designed to tap their awareness of how they were learning…

In 1988, a study was conducted to determine whether a holistic or an isolated skills approach is more effective in improving the reading abilities and attitudes toward reading of predominantly Hispanic community college students. The study sample consisted of two groups of developmental reading students. The majority of students in both groups…

An integrated reading program was developed and implemented to raise reading comprehension levels and attitudes toward reading in two groups of urban comprehensive high school students. A targeted group of 10th-grade English 2 Regular and English 2 Skills students was established for the program with the objective to reduce reading deficits that…

Designed to encourage students in grades 7-12 to make reading a habit, this annotated booklist contains over 400 titles of fiction and nonfiction books published between 1987 and 1989. It is intended for students who are able to read but lack the motivation to do so because they have not encountered books that speak to their interests and…

A study examined three different basal reading series (MacMillan, Harcourt-Brace, and Scott Foresman) at four different levels for the types of stories found in the readers, as well as for acts of reading portrayed in the stories. Subjects, 12 second grade students at a New Jersey elementary school, completed a teacher-constructed inventory on the…

Interviews with over 200 adults, both those who enjoy reading and dislike reading, were used to investigate the assumption that the impetus for lifelong enjoyment of reading most often occurs in the home before children enter school. Results indicate that parents who enjoy reading and encourage it produce families that enjoy reading. The…

Narrowly defining reading as a list of skills dealing with word attack and letter sounds is potentially crippling to readers, because it limits the instruction provided by those who write literature--authors, who, in creating text, create meaning. The nature of reading instruction should not structure the ways human beings come to deal with…

A study examined children's comprehension of and preferences for basal reader stories with differing levels of coherence. The subjects were 58 second grade students who each read orally three stories judged to differ substantially on the number of incoherences in the text. Incoherences were defined as confusing referents, unclear relationships…