Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate two recent examples of the New Zealand Ministry of Education's approach to reducing the persistent disparities in achievement between students of different social and ethnic groups. The first example is cluster-based school improvement, and the second is the development of national standards for…

This paper considers the place of one-to-one teacher/student oral reading interactions in reading instruction. Maintaining that there is an important function for such interactions in learning to read, the paper analyzes one learning process in these interactions--attention to errors--and argues that in oral reading instruction, attention to…

Reviews research on the possible roles that errors might play in learning to read. Contrasts a productive view of errors with the view that errors are problematic to instruction, stating that the two are compatible. Concludes that errors can have both a generative and an inhibiting function depending upon instructional conditions. (GEA)

Shows that when readers read independently after immediate correction, they continued to self-correct smaller percentages of miscues and were less accurate in identifying words. (HOD)

Discusses a study in which four low-achieving 12-year-old readers were trained to tutor similar age low-achieving readers in reading comprehension strategies. States that both tutors and students learned to use the strategies effectively and that both groups made substantial gains in comprehension. (GEA)

Examines the interactions that take place as nine exemplary teachers from New Zealand provide support for struggling writers in ways that inadvertently often turn out to be less effective than they hoped. Discusses four ways to produce unintended outcomes. Illustrates that even for exceptional teachers of writing, conducting effective conferences…