Education Commons^™

Reading: The Conferences, Kathryn Kinnucan-Welsch

Teacher Education Faculty Publications

The theme of this issue of Reading Horizons is exemplary practice, and as I recall, several of the sessions from the annual conference of the International Reading Association it becomes clear how central the concept of teacher as professional is to exemplary practice. One session in particular — Teacher Preparation and Staff Development: Lessons from New Zealand — presented by Debra Elliot and colleagues provided some food for thought in considering the teacher as professional. In discussing current models of student teaching, which is of course a critical component to the development of the teacher as professional, Stephanie Steffey from …

Reviews: Professional Materials, Kathryn Kinnucan-Welsch, Sherry R. Myers, Paul Bright, Jeanne M. Jacobson

Teacher Education Faculty Publications

Reviews of the following:

• Basic Reading Inventory (Jerry L. Johns)
• Merry Christmas, Amanda and April (Bonnie Pryor)
• Chicken Man (Michelle Edwards)
• All the Lights in the Night (Arthur A. Levine)
• Jack and the Beanstalk (Steven Kellogg)
• The Swineherd (Hans Christian Andersen)
• The Worst Person’s Christmas (James Stevenson)
• That’s Exactly the Way it Wasn’t (James Stevenson)
• An Auto Mechanic; A Carpenter; A Potter (Douglas Florian)
• Meredith’s Mother Takes the Train (Deborah Lee Rose)

In The Classroom: The Winter Tradition Project (Feb. '91), Michael P. French, Kathy Everts Danielson

Teacher Education Faculty Publications

In an effort to involve all students and to educate them about the cultures of other countries, I developed a "winter tradition" project. The project required that students write brief descriptions of things their families do during the holidays or winter months. These were compiled into a class booklet. The winter tradition project proved to an excellent activity for middle school students because it allowed them to learn about each other while increasing their writing, computer, and interpersonal skills. I introduced this five-day project to five language arts classes of 20-25 students each.

In The Classroom: Strategies For Poor Readers (Mar. '90), Michael P. French, Kathy Everts Danielson, Maureen Conn, Willa Gale, Charlene Lueck, Mona Manley

Teacher Education Faculty Publications

All readers need successful learning experiences. Recent research suggests that poor readers benefit from using the same whole language reading and writing strategies as more successful readers. In her introduction to the April 1988 themed issue of Vie Reading Teacher on what works with poor readers.

Irene West Gaskins stated: The research I was doing supported the current view that reading is a process in which an active and strategic reader gains meaning through an interaction between background knowledge and information in a text. Since I have adopted this definition, the way I teach has changed and students in the …