Discusses several new educational assessment procedures implemented in Illinois and Michigan school districts. (MM)

Describes how to teach story mapping to primary-grade students. (MM)

Outlines the procedures for organizing a book club for elementary level students. Describes how a book club motivates children to read and gives them the opportunity to share, enjoy, and exercise their oral communication skills. (MM)

Describes several shared reading activities that pair up older and younger elementary level students. (MM)

Describes a literature-based activity designed to engage elementary level students in higher-order thinking skills. (MM)

Describes ELVES (Excite, Listen, Visualize, Extend, Savor), a read-aloud strategy designed to develop listening comprehension and maintain elementary school students' initial excitement about reading. (MM)

Provides a rationale for organizing history instruction around children's trade books. Presents a sample unit on the American Revolution that has been used successfully with intermediate-grade students. Describes an approach that is unique in its dual focus on students' affective responses to literature and their learning of content. (MG)

Offers a collection and analysis of anecdotal records as a way to evaluate student progress, inform instructional planning, and generate new assessment questions. Provides information about techniques for collecting and analyzing anecdotal records. (MG)

Reflects on the qualities of the author's mother as a teacher to affirm his belief that good teaching transcends methodology and philosophy. (MG)

Presents strategies teachers might use to assess and promote beginning readers' phonemic awareness, a factor shown to be strongly linked to the successful acquisition of reading ability. (MG)

Examines the benefits of choral reading as they relate to language acquisition in general. Focuses on second-language learners as the authors explore factors that promote second language acquisition and the role that choral reading plays in enhancing children's progress. (MG)

Reviews 38 recently published children's books in the categories of music, opera and dance, theater and film, the visual arts, architecture, crafts, and language. Offers a 105-item bibliography of books for a science curriculum to add to those reviewed in the December 1991 column. (MG)

Encourages educators to read abstracts and reviews as a way to bridge the gap between the knowledge base gleaned from reading the original studies and operating solely on common sense and practical experience. (MG)

Discusses three major differences between the vocabulary of reading lessons and content area lessons. Discusses the implications these differences make in instruction. (MG)

Reviews two handbooks of research and focuses on what they have to offer professionals in the field of reading and language arts. (MG)