Notes that the third edition of the Burns/Roe Informal Reading Inventory takes less time to administer. Reports an absence of data on the inventory's reliability. Concludes that if used to study, evaluate, or diagnose reading behaviors, the Burns and Roe IRI could be a popular and valuable tool. (RS)

Discusses Janice A. Radway's "Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy and Popular Literature." Argues that reading educators should consider a more general premise embodied in the book: in order to understand the appeal (or lack of it) of certain books, then educators first need to understand what the books are for the students who read them. (RS)

Features television program listings as an example of a document structure called "intersecting lists." Illustrates how intersecting lists provide a more efficient means for representing certain types of information than either prose or combined lists. (RS)

Reviews the fourth edition of the Analytic Reading Inventory (ARI). Notes the addition of suggestions for diagnostic interpretation and teacher interpretations. Finds the ARI to be a convenient yet reliable diagnostic tool. (RS)

Describes how Multiple Response Techniques (MRTs) can be used before, during, and after reading to help students better comprehend content material. Argues that MRTs enhance comprehension by engaging all students, focusing on students' strengths, training students in reflectivity and self-monitoring, and allowing the teacher quick evaluation of…

Discusses the use of Informal Reading Inventories (IRIs) in evaluating reading performance. Notes that although the IRI provides an in-depth evaluation of reading behavior, it should be used in conjunction with other information to assess reading ability. (MM)

Provides questions that help students focus on the significant differences between words when studying synonyms. (MM)

Discusses literacy in the author's own family and asks whether the term "family literacy" can really refer with any accuracy to any group of people or to any set of behaviors. Argues that literacy educators must resist abstractions and generalizations and focus upon the particularities that help shape the individual literacies of their…

Inaugurates this column's topic for the year: document strategy procedures and ways to teach them. Argues that knowledge of document structures allows for better knowledge of the cognitive steps and metacognitive strategies in document processing. (SR)

Reviews document strategies called "locate tasks." Discusses "cycle tasks," tasks requiring two or more locate tasks, repeating the known/need-to-know steps, thus cycling to earlier steps in the known/need-to-know procedure. (SR)

Asserts that students' inaccurate prior knowledge in science can hinder the learning process. Presents instructional strategies for elementary and secondary school students that have been proved effective by research, such as augmented activation activities, refutational text, nonrefutational text, and the discussion web. (PRA)

Asserts that picture books are a medium for all ages. Recommends several recent picture books and groups them under headings suggesting potential uses, with extra activities noted. (PRA)

Argues that the terms "active" and "passive" are commonly used (in conjunction with student behavior during reading) in a way that is misleading and unhelpful. (SR)

Presents a humorous treatment of trends in the literacy business: blaming somebody else and tackling complex problems as if they were easy. (SR)

Argues that reading teachers ought to pay as much attention to what students read as to how they read. Illustrates the state of children's publishing with the heavily revised and simplified Hardy Boys series and with sloppy books about dinosaurs. (RS)