The Reading Teacher articles from December 2001

The Reading Teacher archives from December 2001

Can teachers and policy makers learn to talk to one another? Competing discourses of change are found in education. It is time for a metadiscourse that recognizes these differences.
December 1, 2001... Anyone who has been a new teacher in a school knows something about discourses. At every school there are unwritten rules about how to behave and act, such as how one gets supplies, who sits where in the teachers' lounge, how casually one...

An educational evening out. (Teaching Ideas).
December 1, 2001... Stratton Elementary has a schoolwide Title I program that serves a population of children who have historically been at risk for low academic achievement. Over the past several years, parental involvement in extracurricular events has been...

Comprehension strategy gloves. (Teaching Ideas).
December 1, 2001... Susie and Chuck (all names are pseudonyms) began a dialogue while eagerly waiting to begin reading a new story. They had their books open, perusing the title and illustration, and their conversation centered on answering the prereading...

Fluency beyond the primary grades: from group performance to silent, independent reading: reading fluency contributes to comprehension and enjoyment, but is not commonly taught beyond the primary grades. Here are several suggestions for incorporating fluency practice in any classroom.
December 1, 2001... We all know fluent reading when we hear it, but what exactly is it? Fluency is integral to comprehension and is a critical component of successful reading, but even reading researchers don't agree on a single definition (Strecker, Roser, &...

Errata.
December 1, 2001... The following annotation was left out of the Intermediate Readers section of the 2001 Children's Choices, published in the October 2001 issue of The Reading Teacher. The International Reading Association apologizes for this oversight. ...

Becoming a multicultural teacher. (Teaching and Learning About Cultural Diversity).
December 1, 2001... I am often asked to offer advice to nonminority teachers in the United States on how they might best work with minority students. Undoubtedly, the request is made out of a genuine desire to help these students be more successful in school,...

Matching texts and readers: leveling early reading materials for assessment and instruction: the authors describe a book leveling system developed to support emergent literacy in one Canadian school district.
December 1, 2001... For too long, we have tried to teach children to read using materials that may not be at an appropriate level of difficulty for them. If students are to learn and apply reading strategies, they need texts that provide a balance between...

From conditions of learning to conditions of teaching. (Conditions for Literacy Learning).
December 1, 2001... I've spent much of my professional life trying to understand the complex learning that regularly occurs in the everyday world. One of my aims has been to develop a way to describe complex learning that teachers would find useful, especially...

Whaz up with our books? Changing picture book codes and teaching implications: children's books change with the culture around them. Understanding postmodern picture books helps children make sense of a complex world.
December 1, 2001... Working with the input of teachers, librarians, and critics, Hearne (1998) compiled a canon of exemplary 20th-century children's picture books. This list of 35 books starts with Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit (1901) and then moves onto such...

Reforming reading instruction in Ireland and England. (International Perspectives on Literacy).
December 1, 2001... In the late 1990s, several reforms were introduced to improve the teaching of reading in primary (elementary) schools and raise reading achievement levels in Ireland and in England. In this column I examine some of these reforms, in light of...

"But that's a girls' book!" Exploring gender boundaries in children's reading practices: gender is a central tension in children's book-choosing behavior. They need space to experience and challenge gender boundaries.
December 1, 2001... Boundary: something (as a line, point, or plane)that indicates or fixes a limit or extent. (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 10th ed.) One day, years ago, at the close of their weekly visit to the school library, I watched a class of...

2001 Caldecott Medal winner: a glimpse into the art of David Small.
December 1, 2001... I read widely, look at art constantly and record events from my daily life in my journal. Reading prevents me from reinventing the wheel; looking at art teaches me about history and artistic style; travel expands my mind and my universe; and...

2001 Newbery Medal winner: a conversation with Richard Peck.
December 1, 2001... Peck's characters are fully realized, from the quiet widow nursing her war-injured son, to Maxine Patch, running out of Grandma's house draped only in the biggest snake outside the Brookfield Zoo. These stories will, like Maxine, streak...

Stepping back, looking forward. (Children's Books).
December 1, 2001... "The past and the present do interact--and in the process they acquire a deeper dimension." Jean Fritz, NCTE Convention presentation, November 23, 1998 "When we write about either the future or the past, we are really writing about...