Education Commons^™

Scheduling For A Differentiated Reading Program, Anne Polselli Sweet, Robert Lynn Canady

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

A renewed impetus toward the improvement of reading instruction has been provided in great measure by the nationwide thrust toward educational accountability. Educators have been prompted to seek diverse means for improving reading instruction because of the realization that large numbers of average to high IQ children exhibit a discrepancy between capacity and performance scores. Supplementary instructional programs have been instituted; teacher in-service programs have been provided; paraprofessionals have been employed; teaching methodologies have been varied; learning centers have been constructed; management systems have been implemented; and new textbooks have been adopted. Altering the delivery of instruction, however, has been …

To Teach A Social Studies Concept--Chunk It!, Esther P. Valentine, Olive R. Francks

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

"I don't know why they couldn't answer the questions. We covered the subject in our social studies class. Besides, all the answers are in the textbook!"

Has such a thought ever passed through your mind as you looked with dismay at your class' test results? Unfortunately, this kind of reaction is common to the social studies teacher in our nation's classrooms. Difficulties in learning to read in content area subjects tend to baffle the teacher and present obstacles to the learner. All this can be overcome by a strategy which is based on knowledge of how a student learns to …

Eric Hoffer And The Significance Of Reading, Mark E. Thompson

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Eric Hoffer is a most unusual person. He was born in 1902 in New York City and taught himself to read English and German at the age of five. When he was seven years old, he suddenly and inexplicably went blind (Tomkins, 1968). At the age of 15, he mysteriously recovered his sight and became a voracious reader. Hoffer had no mentor or formal education during his youth or in his adult years, but he had books to read from the public libraries of California. After the death of his father in 1920 (his mother died when he was seven), …

Book Review, Elanor Buelke, Greta Ray

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Bettlelheim, Bruno Surviving New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979. Pp. xi + 432.

Reading Horizons Vol. 20, No. 1

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Complete issue of Reading Horizons volume 20, issue 1.

Enriching The Beginning Reading Program: Natural Language Technique, Janet Ross Kendall

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

A friend's first-grade son came running home the other day to show his mother the story he'd "written" and could "read." The story was one he had told the teacher's aide in his classroom; the aide had written it down for him and had read it with him several times until the child knew it by heart. This technique, termed "language experience" or "chart stories," is an extremely good one for promoting positive attitudes toward reading in children and for providing useful experiences with reading.

"A Message From Our Sponsor", Kenneth Vandermeulen

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Letter from the editor.

Are Perceptual Skills Necessary For Success In Reading? Which Ones?, Jean R. Harber

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Numerous reading and reading readiness programs have been made available to teachers over the years, constructed on the assumption that certain auditory and visual perceptual skills are prerequisites to successful achievement in academics, particularly reading. Many educators have suggested that children who have been labeled learning or reading disabled demonstrate deficits at the perceptual level. In fact, many of those who have been instrumental in the field of learning disabilities have suggested that all learning disabled children have perceptual processing problems and that these perceptual problems are at the root of their learning disabilities (Barsch 1965; Cruickshank, 1977; Frostig, 1970; …

Reading Requirements And Basic Secondary Teacher Certification: An Update, Keith J. Thomas, Michele Simpson

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Being involved with pre-service training of content teachers in a state which requires by law courses in reading method, we raised the following question: Since only two such studies appear in the widely circulated professional literature, were the findings reported by Bader truly representative of a positive trend toward a commitment to reading, or had the earlier comments of Estes and Piercey proven to be more prophetic?

Psycholinguistics: Teaching Strategies For Comprehension, Gail M. Huffman, Nancy M. Weddle

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Children typically come to the reading task with a foundation for learning to read. They have attained a substantial amount of oral language and they have accumulated a storehouse of personal background experience. As with oral language, the child needs to understand that what he reads must make sense. Goodman (1973) reminded us, "A reader, then, is a user of language who constantly seeks sense from what he reads. "

Beyond Bibliotherapy: Tell-A-Therapy, William S. O'Bruba, Donald A. Camplese

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Schools, perhaps are in the best position to work with bibliotherapy in a preventive approach against mental illness. In America, schools are founded on the principle that reading experience would affect not only a child's attitude, but also his behavior. The first book published in America, the New England primer, contained both religious and secular material, and who would deny the far reaching influence of the McGuffey Reader on the mind of America. Although there is little tangible evidence supporting the claim that reading does influence and change one's behavior, those involved in fostering the learning of others must continue …

Sentence Building In Reading And Composition, Thomas P. Fitzgerald, Ellen F. Fitzgerald

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

The primary objective of this article is to describe an instructional technique called sentence building as a means of developing the ability to read more complex sentences with understanding and to write more complex sentences. The process may be viewed as a preliminary step to reading and writing paragraphs. A secondary objective is to develop an awareness that instruction in reading and composition should be based on oral language skills and may be taught concomitantly.

The School Library--The Alpha And Omega Of Your Elementary School Reading Program, Lea-Ruth C. Wilkens

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

No child in your school is ever too young to be introduced to the magic place called the library. Kindergartners in particular need to be surrounded with books, books and more books if we expect them to develop voracious appetites for the printed word. All children need to be saturated daily with stories which will stimulate their imagination and keep their curiosities amply nourished. For instance, an appreciation and sense oflanguage and word power can be cultivated very satisfactorily through the use of Mother Goose rhymes. The musical quality of these rhymes has rarely ever failed to tickle children's ears. …

Remembering Is Not Necessarily Understanding In Content Areas, Richard L. Allington, Michael Strange

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Improving comprehension in middle-grade content areas would be an easier topic to address if we had available validated theoretical models, and hence an understanding, of 1) how one learns from text, and 2) how intellectual operations develop in adolescence. Our current state of ignorance in these areas has been aptly summarized by Miller (1976) and Neimark (1975) respectively. We are then, like everyone else who would discuss improving comprehension of text, reduced to drawing upon the available body of literature and from this attempting to produce a framework from which useful strategies can be developed.

Changing Forces In Staff Development: Implications For Reading, Joanne L. Vacca

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

This writer (in press) interviewed six recognized reading experts in order to synthesize a general aim or purpose of staff development in reading.

Profssional Concerns, R Baird Shuman, Patricia M. Cunningham

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Professional Concerns is a regular column devoted to the interchange of ideas among those interested in reading instruction. Send your comments and contributions to the editor. If you have questions about reading that you wish to have answered, the editor will find respondents to answer them. Address correspondence to R. Baird Shuman, Department of English, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, 61801.

The Real Energy Shortage, Ken Vandermeulen

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Letter from the editor.

Teachers' Perceptions Of Children's Reading Miscues, Duane R. Tovey

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Many journal articles, scholarly reports and books have been published regarding miscues and the predictive/ communicative nature of the reading process. Few teachers, however, seem to be aware of these more recent research findings which hold highly significant implications for instruction. How many teachers are aware of the predictive/communicative nature of the reading process? How do they feel about reading behavior that does not process each word in a precise exacting manner? Unless teachers are aware of such concepts and incorporate them in their teaching, research efforts become inconsequential.

Diagnosis--A Part Of Content Area Reading, Martha C. Cheek, Earl H. Cheek

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

One of the major trends in education is that of relating reading instruction to the content areas. Middle and secondary school content specialists have been asked to incorporate appropriate reading or learning skills into their content teaching. Many content specialists have recognized this need and are attempting to meet the challenge. Much in-service education is being provided to assist these teachers. Additionally, many state certification standards are requiring that pre-service programs provide new content specialists with necessary instruction in teaching reading in their content areas.

Principles For Establishing Effective Secondary Reading Programs, Donald C. Cushenbery

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

The purpose of this article is to make recommendations regarding the manner in which an effective, viable reading curriculum should be established.

Book Review, Eleanor Buelke

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Feelings: Our Vital Signs by Willard Gaylin

A Foot In The Door: The Annotated Checklist, Timothy R. Hornberger, Jack Cassidy

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

The role of the reading specialist has traditionally been perceived as broader in some scope than that of just a remedial teacher. Ideally, the reading specialist becomes a resource upon which all classroom teachers can rely. Some recent evidence (IRA, 1976) seems to support the assumption that this ideal is, at least to some degree, a reality at the elementary level.

Reading Research--What Difference Does It Make?, Richard D. Robinson

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

What we are confronting here is the dilemma of implementation - how can the results of reading research be utilized in a meaningful way by those who are given the responsibility of teaching children?

Elementary Students' Definitions Of Reading, Kathleen M. Ngandu

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Many reading education authorities (i.e. Smith 1978; Stauffer 197b; Thorndike 1973) discuss reading as a meaning identification process in which the reader actively thinks about what s/he reads. Similarly, most classroom teachers include this relationship between reading and meaning in their definitions of reading (Green, Macaui, & Wood 1978).

Little research. however, has been done on children's perceptions of reading (Tovey 1976). How do children view reading? Do they also view reading as a process emphasizing meaning. or do they view reading as something else? The purpose of this study was to investigate children's definitions of reading. with a special …

The Gifted Student In The Intermediate Grades: Developing Creativity Through Reading, Sharon Dunn

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

There is no consensus on what makes a child gifted. Certainly it is a combination of a multitude of factors: The child's natural heredity sets an upper limit to his possibilities, but giftedness is not a package given at birth with no hopes of change. It is a growing, becoming process that constantly creates, elaborates and refines itself by selecting, comparing, and organizing life experiences (Strang, 1960).

Selling Reading, Nancy Galen, John Prendergast

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Reading teachers hope all their students will become lifelong readers. Students who can successfully propel themselves through print and who view reading as a worthwhile activity are most likely to form this type of permanent attachment to reading. Thus, there should be two ultimate goals of all reading instruction: the evolution of both competent and avid readers.

The Science Of Reading, John D. Stammer

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Those who teach children to read are continually seeking answers to several questions that will improve their approaches to helping children learn.

Inferential Aspects Of The Cloze Task, Michael C. Mckenna

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

The central assumption underlying the cloze procedure is that context can be used inferentially to predict deleted words (or other graphic units). The importance of this assumption suggests that an adequate understanding of the cloze task is impossible without an analytical knowledge of the role inference must play. The present discussion embodies a stepwise analysis of this role, from the point at which the context is read to the point at which the reader is able to distinguish acceptable responses.

Bringing Children And Books Together, Mary Jane Gray

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

The author of good children's books devotes his talents to creating new worlds into which continuing generations eagerly seek entrance. How can teacher help children to discover these new worlds? It has been said that in order to help children develop an interest in reading and a desire to read, the classroom teacher must be familiar with children's books. Much of the literature dealing with the teaching of reading seems to indicate that capitalizing on interests is a relatively recent practice, however, a glance back to the seventeenth century demonstrates that at least one individual would have been an ardent …

Black Students Get An Edge In Reading, Barbara C. Palmer, Lawrence E. Hafner

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

The purpose of this article is not so much to report that minority children are having trouble in learning to read all kinds of children are for that matter·· but to point out that with the proper kind of instruction black children can do as well as other children. Consider briefly the findings of a few research studies documenting contentions about the reading acquisition problems that numbers of black children have.