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Professional Concerns, R Baird Shuman, Collet B. Dilworth Jr.

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

In the contribution which follows, Collett B. Dilworth, Jr., of the English Department at East Carolina University, gets to the very heart of why literature is taught in schools. He broaches the question of how literary study relates to the basic skills, and he ties his rationale in with questions of accountability and its handmaiden, competency testing. Probably the heart of Dilworth's argument is in his statement, "The student of literature is not primarily looking for information, s/he is looking for experience."

Quick Reviews

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

No abstract available.

Author Index

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Index to authors in volume 19.

Reading Horizons Vol. 19, No. 4

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Complete issue of Reading Horizons volume 19, issue 4.

Article Index

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Index to articles in volume 19.

Word Analogies: An Overlooked Reading Aid, Jerry Axelrod

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Few cues give a teacher a more valid or quicker insight into her students' thinking abilities than word analogies. The pupils' mental manipulations· or lack thereof reveal to the aware and perceptive teacher a usually accurate idea of the extent to which her pupils will be able to perform. Picture analogies for nonreaders and word analogies for literate pupils can be used informally by the classroom teachers to approximate just how much pupils, individually, are capable of learning in an academic situation.

Enlarging The Perspective: Whole Teacher, Whole Student, Whole Reading, Dianne Hunter

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Letter from the editor.

Science Fiction: The Future In The Classroom, Joan B. Grady

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Science fiction is a literary genre that has gained more respectability in the past few years than it had experienced previously. One can remember trying to find examples of this genre to read. Jules Verne and H. G. Wells could be found if one were educated enough in the genre to seek out these authors. When pressed, a librarian might try to foist Plato's Republic or More's Utopia off on the neophyte science fiction seeker. For the most part, those interested in this genre had to seek outside the confines of the public library to find examples of science fiction …

Worlds Of Language Within The Classroom, Eleanor Buelke

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Many present-day writers who have studied interdisciplinary approaches to mental health and efficient living and learning have presented irrefutable evidence of strong links among thought, language, and a rational grasp of the real world. They believe that successful venture into the world and stable viability within it depend upon the use of language to establish personal verification of reality. Denial or restriction of a child's language in the learning process is considered disavowal or restraint in the assimilation of enriching experiences. The ability of young learners to think symbolically becomes a prerequisite for true language learning, including the mastery of …

What Administrators Actually Know About Reading Programs, Martha Rapp Haggard, Jane Warren Meeks

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

The purpose of this survey was to determine the extent and depth of public school administrators' attitudes, knowledge and concepts about reading programs. Surveys were sent to 100 public school administrators in a mid-western metropolitan area. The results were tabulated from fifty-nine respondents; six superintendents, twenty-one secondary principals, and thirty-two elementary principals. No special supervisors (language arts curriculum, personnel. etc.) were included in the study.

A Reading Lesson Checklist For The Principal, Sandra Mccormick

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

The checklist presented below is a follow-up to the article in the last issue of Reading Horizons entitled "Assistance for the School Principal: Evaluate Classroom Reading Programs." The checklist is designed to provide additional assistance to the elementary school principal.

Reading--Do We Need To Know What It Is Before We Try To Teach It?, Dorothy Garman

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

If, for a brief moment, we could look into a child's mind while he or she were reading, would we find the child's approach to reading compatible with the teacher's approach to teaching? The answer would probably depend upon how the teacher views the reading process. If the teacher believes that reading is a process of identifying individual letters or individual words, then the teacher will probably not be inclined to teach in the way that the child is inclined to read.

Implications From Psycholinguistics For Secondary Reading, W. John Harker

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Over the past decade, increasing interest has been shown in the implications of psycholinguistics for understanding the reading process. Mainly through the work of Goodman (1969; 1970) and Smith (1971; 1975), linguistic and psychological knowledge have been combined to describe the reading process of mature readers and the process through which children learn to read. The educational implications of this psycholinguistic model have been largely concerned with the learning-to-read process of elementary school children. But significant implications for secondary developmental reading instruction arc suggested as well. It is the purpose of this paper to identify and explore some of these …

Beginning Reading Without Readiness: Structured Language Experience, Patricia Cunningham

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

The language experience approach has for generations been one of the tricks in the bags of versatile reading teachers. Allen (1964) emphasizes the link between speaking. writing and reading inherent in the language experience approach. Hall (1972) supplies seven statements supporting the linguistic soundness of the language experience approach.

Cloze Encounters Of A Different Kind, Robert F. Carey

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

The cloze test usually consists of a graded reading passage from which words have been deleted according to some methodical strategy. such as every fifth word. every tenth word. every pronoun. etc. The deleted words are replaced with blanks of a uniform size. and the student is asked to fill in the blanks with the most appropriate word.

Reading Assessment--The Third Dimension, Jerry L. Johns

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Assessing a student's progress in reading should be an integral part of every reading program. Most teachers use standardized or informal tests for the diagnosis and evaluation of reading achievement; however, a third means of assessment is available to teachers. This article is intended to help educators legitimatize this often ignored method of assessing reading behavior and evaluating reading performance.

Peer-Tutoring: Learning Boon Or Exploitation Of The Tutor?, Helen Howell

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

The concept of peer tutoring is not new. Its use has been traced back through centuries. Probably all elementary school teachers have used it at some time-usually in the brief, informal situation of having Billy help Jimmy with some specific problem or skill need. In recent years, the idea has expanded and the more formal peer-tutoring or peer-mediated instruction concept has received attention and support. This increased interest in peer-tutoring appears to have been prompted by the need to individualize instruction and to do so as economically as possible.

Professional Concerns, R Baird Shuman, Willliam S. Palmer

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

William S. Palmer is Professor of Reading and Language Arts at the University of NC?rth Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is well known for his contributions to professional journals in the field of reading and English education. He is author of Teaching Reading to High School Students.

In his contribution to this column, Professor Palmer points out some of the oversimplication which results from basing reading programs upon the taxonomic model. He carefully explores the stages of beginning reading, and he sets these in a useful historical perspective. In doing so, he avoids the Aristotelian either/or dichotomy in his …

Effectiveness Procedures For Teaching Reference Study Skills, Donald C. Cushenbery

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

In many elementary developmental reading programs, the areas of word attack and comprehension traditionally receive major attention with respect to reading skills instruction. In some other cases there is much emphasis with respect to phonics and other forms of decoding with less priority given to comprehension. Typically, the skill area receiving the least amount of importance is that of reference study skills since it is assumed by some teachers that if a student is efficient in word attack and comprehension, he/she will naturally transmit these skills to assignments dealing with library resources.

Remedial College Freshmen English Students: Description And Characteristics, Mark E. Thompson, Bonnie C. Plummer

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

This report is an analysis of the characteristics found among students in remedial, freshman English classes at a large, mid-south, regional university. At the end of the 1977 Spring Semester, 187 students from 13 remedial, freshman English classes were analyzed in terms of ability, motivation to attend classes and career choice (declared or undeclared majors). These variables were analyzed and compared to achievement levels (grades).

Quick Reviews

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

No abstract available.

Reading Horizons Vol. 19, No. 3

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Complete issue of Reading Horizons volume 19, issue 3.

Aid For The School Principle: Evaluate Classroom Reading Programs, Sandra Mccormick

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Most school systems require the principal of a building to make judgments about the quality of each teacher's instructional program as part of a process of rating teachers. Since reading instruction is generally conceded to be the most important part of the elementary school curriculum, there is frequently concern for evaluation of that component of the school program.

Organizing Observable Reading Behaviors, Karl Koenke

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

All teachers observe their students while they read. That is part of the job. The question is: How well organized is the observation? For example, when asked for information about the child who is being referred because of a reading problem, what can be said and how logically is it organized? Or, when facing the parent of a child with a reading problem, what information might be reasonable to have at hand?

Children Get Ready To Read, Michael D. Davis, Joseph A. Muia

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

One of the major concerns of early childhood education has been. and will continue to be, the development of an optimal readiness program for children. (Almy, 1967).

Children's Recognition Of Words In Isolation And In Context, Patrick Groff

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

The extent to which young children use, or should use sentence contexts as cues to word recognition is an unsettled issue. It is clear, on the one hand, that there are inherent limitations in this cue system to its successful use for this purpose (Groff, 1975). Also, the notion that beginning readers "have little else on which to rely" for word recognition except context cues, as offered by Karlin (1971, p. 145) has also been demonstrated as false. To the contrary, the research on word recognition suggests that these young children use letters as the main cues for word recognition …

So What If Johnny Can't Read, Donovan Russell

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Letter from the editor.

A Psycholinguistic Look At The Informal Reading Inventory Part Ii: Inappropriate Inferences From An Informal Reading Inventory, Constance Weaver, Laura Smith

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

In this article we propose to discuss in more detail the kinds of inferences that may be inappropriately drawn from an informal reading inventory. This discussion should strengthen the rationale for our approach to analyzing a reader's miscues (errors) and determining what kinds of instructional approaches might be appropriate for that reader (see the preceding issue of Reading Horizons).

Issues And Trends: Ira National Conventions, 1962-1977, Kathleen M. Ngandu

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

This article is an analysis of national IRA conventions' spanning the years 1962-1977. It is an attempt to assess past directions, which may in turn affect current as well as future reading concerns.

Overskill, John F. Prendergast

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

A very wise person once conjectured about the relative merits of teaching children individual sounds in isolation before allowing them to speak. Only after a child had demonstrated mastery of phonemes (sound units) could s/he be allowed to advance to morphemes (meaning units). Thought units (T units or sentences) would follow. Under such a highly structured, individualized learning program, students could easily learn to say, "I hate school," by the end of second or third grade (depending on intelligence, socio-economic status, and motivation of course).