This report examines the current state of library services for Hispanic young adults and recommends a program for greatly expanding these services at the Latin American Branch of the Oakland Public Library. The study was conducted through an extensive reading of the literature on the topic, interviews with key individuals, and surveys. The first…

A program was developed for improving primary level student intelligences in order to improve reading comprehension, prediction skills, and the ability to apply targeted reading strategies. The targeted population consisted of first and second grade students in a middle class community located in the far southern Chicago metropolitan area. The…

The purpose of this study was to measure the gains that culturally different 4-year-old children made in reading readiness activities and the acquisition of a sight vocabulary when exposed to an extensive prekindergarten reading intervention program. The subjects of the study were selected initially from a group of volunteer families. The subjects…

A discussion of the English language teaching method of Toru Matsumoto, author of "Thinking in English," reconstructs the instructional principle and presents it for further development. First, the history of English language teaching in Japan is reviewed and Matsumoto's biography is sketched. The salient features of the principle are…

Students who lag behind in vocabulary commonly experience academic failure. A student's vocabulary knowledge directly impacts reading comprehension. To improve comprehension, students need exposure to a variety of literature and opportunities for meaningful practice of vocabulary they encounter daily. Vocabulary is developed through a variety of…

This report describes the method of foreign language teacher training used in Hungary called the Veszprem (a region in Hungary) model, with particular emphasis on English-language teaching, and includes a brief review of foreign language teacher training in Hungary and in the United States from 1988-1990. The Veszprem model maintains the positive…

The significance of authors' reading notes may lie not only in their mechanical function as information storage devices providing raw materials for writing, but also in their ability to concentrate and to mobilize the latent emotional and creative resources of their keepers. This document examines records of reading found in the published…

A study was conducted to determine whether programmed instruction or traditional instruction in chemistry was more effective in terms of student preference, student achievement, achievement of students with low reading levels, and achievement of students with high reading levels. Two non-random groups of students with equivalent learning ability…

Described is a special program in which 75 educable mentally retarded students were mainstreamed into West Philadelphia High School during the 1975-76 school year, after large percentages of such students had failed in previous years to adjust to regular classes. Discussed are the program goals of emotional, social, and economic adjustement, and…

The Hmong are a distinct Asian people who, for thousands of years, dwelled in China, and then, more recently, in Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Vietnam War caused thousands of Hmong to be displaced, and many came to the United States. This paper describes the decade-long resettlement of Hmong refugees in Decorah, a small town in Iowa. The…

This report describes a plan to increase word recognition skills. The targeted population consists of first, second, and fourth grade students in upper middle, middle, and lower socioeconomic communities located in the suburbs outside of a large city. The problem of inadequate word recognition skills was documented through data revealing the…

A study compared the effects of words in isolation (WI) and words in context (WC) instruction on the word learning and retention of word meanings of 11 average readers from a multi-age classroom (grades 4 and 5). To investigate whether WC instruction improved a child's ability to use context cues to determine the meaning of an unknown word…

The aim of this study was to investigate the extent to which practice in the use of figurative comparisons in the composing of poetry, in both oral and in written form, will increase the use of figurative comparisons in the writing of prose. The study tested oral composition of poetry vs. written composition of poetry, and intensive treatment in…

An action research project implemented musical strategies to affect and enhance student recall and memory. The target population was three suburban elementary schools near a major midwestern city: (1) a kindergarten classroom contained 32-38 students; (2) a second grade classroom contained 23 students and five Individualized Education Program…