Notes that current efforts to integrate technology into learning at all levels focus on the exploration of potential uses of technology in education; on research and development; and on personnel training and the dissemination of information. Suggests resources to help special educators locate services and readings for special educators on…

Discusses how students become automatic at reading sub-skills, the indicators that can be used to determine whether a student is automatic, and the psychological mechanisms that allow students to perform complex skills automatically. Discusses implications of automaticity research for teaching reading. (RS)

Reviews recent literature on automaticity, defining the criteria that distinguish automatic processing from non-automatic processing, and describing modern theories of the underlying mechanisms. Focuses on evidence from studies of reading and draws implications from theory and data for practical issues in teaching reading. Suggests that…

Notes that reading research has advanced from notions that reading is a visual-perception task of word recognition and decoding to more precise psycho- and neurolinguistic models of language and literacy. Concludes that reading is a skill that develops to an automatic level depending on the degree to which the individual can access phonemic and…

Focuses on inferential processes in reading and the question of whether those processes are automatic. Examines the importance of inference generation during reading comprehension. Describes research that investigates which inferences appear to be automatic. Discusses characteristics of skilled reading that are related to the automaticity of…

Notes that talking books have the potential to give remedial students extensive supported practice in real reading. Suggests talking books must not be regarded as a means of fully meeting the teacher's instructional responsibility to these students. Concludes that talking books represent a new resource for an old dilemma, but they are not a total…

Notes full inclusion has become a reality in many schools. Discusses four basic types of resistance to such educational reforms. Suggests that a functional approach can help educators deal with resistance. Suggests learning to recognize resistance and to deal with it effectively facilitates the creation of alternatives for students with special…

Discusses two sets of social relations involved in reading and writing practices: (1) author/reader social relationships, and (2) participant social relationships. Notes each set of social relationships has implications for issues of authority, power, social identities, definitions of knowledge, emotional relationships, and social-group identity.…

Describes how basal readers manufacture reading failures among students from less-privileged economic and social backgrounds. Reviews the history of reading instruction in the United States. Calls for educators to speak out against reading practices that protect the privilege of the upper and upper-middle classes by encoding their values and…

Suggests that a goal of schooling should be to educate students for democracy as a means of challenging a status quo in which a relatively small number of people control a disproportionate share of society's social and economic resources. Examines the potential of critical, pro-justice, whole-language instruction to help create the conditions for…

Presents examples of how standardized testing recognizes, constrains, or dismisses the multifaceted aspects of identities children bring to classrooms and influences the identities of teachers and psychologists whose actions are constrained by a culture that reproduces itself. Challenges readers to take up new models of assessment that not only…

Illustrates the possibilities of critical literacy by discussing a project a class of fourth-grade students undertook to write and produce a play about the conditions of apartheid, the history of resistance, and the upcoming South African elections. Concludes that students felt empowered as social activists and believed they had a mandate and the…

Discusses the impact and the potential of the Internet on education. Suggests that educators and parents need to deal with the lack of quality assurance of the Internet. Addresses readability and appropriateness for children. Notes that successful use of the Internet by children requires that teachers provide instruction in multiple sources and…

Discusses textbooks and the myth of the homogeneous classroom, differentiated reading assignments (DRAs), locating sources for DRAs, evaluating appropriateness of reading sources, collecting and organizing DRA sources, creating individualized student assignments, providing content exposure for students who cannot read available materials, and…

Argues that research and experience teach society that the arts, which embrace many different learning styles and appeal to students of all ability levels, help students master traditional academic subjects. Discusses recent legislation; the broad impact of the arts; connections between the arts and literacy; integrating arts and academics; arts…