Investigated the effectiveness of guided practice in teaching reading comprehension to 31 sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students in a remedial reading class. Guided practice led to superior results in rule-based inference comprehension activities, but did not enhance student performance on QAR2 (a metacognitive strategy) activities. (RJC)

Investigated effects of a collaborative planning task on problem solving and attention to reading comprehension on the part of six student teachers. The group planning task caused student teachers to think about reading and reading instruction and involved them in problem-solving activities associated with the cyclic planning process and teacher…

Describes the way in which a second grade teacher changed her practices and beliefs regarding the teaching of mathematics. Illustrates that the changes did not influence her teaching of reading. (PCB)

Results indicated that students identified as disadvantaged who participated in Chapter One received significantly more reading and language arts instruction in regular education classes than did mainstreamed children identified as handicapped and served through special education programs. (PCB)

A two-year study determined the effects of a comprehensive cooperative-learning approach to reading and language arts instruction on students' achievement, attitudes, and metacognitive awareness. Students in second through sixth grades, some mainstreamed academically handicapped, worked in heterogeneous learning teams on reading and writing…

Twenty kindergarten classrooms were observed during two full days of integrated language instruction. Over 300 observed literacy tasks were analyzed by activity format, duration, cognitive complexity, organization, and participation structures. Results indicated that, although most of the activities were meaning based, over half of the observed…

Examined effects of explicit teaching and peer tutoring on reading achievement of learning-disabled students and nondisabled, low-performing readers in academically integrated classrooms. Found that explicit-teaching students did not achieve reliably better than controls; students in the explicit teaching plus peer tutoring condition scored higher…

Examined tracking in a large urban school system with respect to how classroom conditions, resources, and teaching methods compared in 20 remedial and 20 regular tracked first-grade classes. Found that teaching methods and activities varied across subjects but were constant across tracks. (ET)

Examined six aspects of vocabulary instruction given to fourth and sixth graders prior to reading in two basal reading series. Found that words targeted for instruction were already known; instruction in the two series differed markedly; much of the instruction was not sufficient to improve comprehension; and instruction was not necessarily suited…

Observations of second- and third-grade teachers who participated in a staff development program illustrate teachers' difficulties with getting low achievers to focus on and understand the process of being strategic and with using literacy tasks to teach strategy. (BB)

Studied the role of textbooks in elementary education. Found that the influence of textbooks on teachers' thinking and on classroom instruction was somewhat less than the literature indicates. Patterns of textbook use were not consistent across academic subjects. Conditions of elementary education encourage selective and variable textbook use. (BB)

Examined instructional processes used by six teachers in a private school for bright underachievers that was characterized by a strategic teaching initiative and strong instructional leadership. Results were used to characterize the nature of the instructional dialogue. Results demonstrated teachers' fidelity to a particular vision of instruction.…

Examined the relationship between a teacher's understanding, and six bilingual, Mexican-American third graders' understanding, of modified cloze reading lessons that were taught during an academic year. Students were able to use context clues and describe what the modified cloze procedure involved. However, students rarely understood the purpose…

Reviews the system of elementary education in the Republic of Ireland. Examines demographic data on the nature and size of school population and the organization of elementary education; describes curriculum at the junior and senior grade levels; presents research findings relating to reading, mathematics, science; and considers teacher and…

Based upon teacher interviews and classroom observations, outlines a continuum of nine "points of progress" teachers seem to go through in learning to teach strategies to their lowest achieving students: confusion and rejection; teacher-controlled strategies; trying out; modeling process into content; "the wall"; "over the…