Examines the performance and construction of subjectivities of four early adolescent, sixth-grade girls as they read and discussed a novel about two adolescent Mexican children seeking a new life in America. Suggests they engaged in ongoing construction of their subjectivities as they interacted with the text and each other. Notes the girls…

Finds in year 1, children showed effects of neighborhood size in high frequency words read in stories and in low frequency words read in lists and stories; in year 2, rimes from large neighborhoods were read more accurately than rimes from other neighborhoods; and by year 3, effects on low-frequency words continued, but not for high-frequency…

Describes two at-risk readers' perceptions of in-school and out-of-school reading-related activities; their conceptions of reading, learning to read, and themselves as readers; and their responses to their teachers' learner-centered, meaning-based reading instruction. Illustrates the instructional significance of children's conceptions about…

Notes the high-school students in the experimental group were given approximately 18 sessions of individual tutoring in which they practiced associations between letter patterns and pronunciations for pronounceable parts of words. Finds these students showed greater improvements on all measures than did students in a control condition when the…

Uses "dialogic responsiveness" to provide a holistic framework for synthesizing, researching, and describing the complexities of responsive dialogue in literacy classroom contexts. Reveals how teachers were able to be responsive to the cultural, cognitive, emotional, motivational, and physical needs of young literacy learners. Discusses…

Discusses the need to reconceptualize literacies in the lives of black males. Suggests there is a need to create environments where black males are encouraged to search for meaning in their lives and construct their visibility. Contends that teacher educators must reconstruct their representation of black males so that they are accurate and…

Discusses how three girls take up competing social messages about gendered identity in the different kinds of texts they read. Explains that it is in the complex transactions between the reader's prior lived experiences and the language of the text where meaning is shaped. Contends that when girls are encouraged to consider the actions of female…

Notes that adolescent readers view characters in young adult novels as living and wrestling with real problems close to their own life experiences as teens. Reviews recent studies related to teaching literature and adolescent identity construction. Offers a framework teachers can use to initiate discussions based on critical literacy in their own…

Contends that there is no literacy crisis in the United States. Notes that research on college-level proficient readers has indicated that reading educators are doing a better job of educating students to become mature readers and that even at the elementary level the news is better than most people realize. Suggests that the conception of reading…

Contends that if at-risk college students are held to high standards, directly taught strategies for accomplishing good work within academic conventions, informed of the demands of the institution, and treated as colleagues in the shared adventure of learning, they can participate fully and successfully in the intellectual life of the college.…

Notes that "manga"--Japanese comics--constitute the most popular kind of reading material in Japan. Discusses the skills needed to read manga. Surveys 297 Japanese college students. Suggests that many manga readers can be considered engaged readers as they are highly motivated and have developed a range of strategies to help them understand texts.…

Concludes, derived from three years' work with high school and college writing classes, that students need to practice reading one another's work while giving and receiving feedback. Describes a program in which writing teachers of college-bound high school seniors and freshman college composition teachers designed writing assignments that all of…

Describes how the living conditions affected the author's teaching experience in Malaysia. Considers many of the challenges she faced when teaching in Malaysia. Gains many new understandings about the differences as well as the similarities of teaching writing in Malaysia and in the United States. (SG)

Argues that two barriers to literacy are the failure of teacher-education programs to adequately prepare reading specialists to work with language-minority learners and of education researchers to engage in more substantive research on English reading development for such students. Points out the barriers that exist within the literacy education…

Considers how a systematic approach to writing instruction would increase students' performance in both writing and reading. Notes that teachers should connect their reading and writing activities in meaningful ways because reading and writing are reciprocal and mutually reinforcing. Describes use of a "gradual release" model in which teachers…