The Reading Teacher articles from March 2004

The Reading Teacher archives from March 2004

Bridging the gap between fiction and nonfiction in the literature circle setting: literature circles can be a valuable tool for engaging students with nonfiction texts.
March 1, 2004... Tom waved his hand eagerly at me, and the rest of his literature circle group soon did the same. On every face I saw an enthusiastic smile. I couldn't wait to hear what new discovery they had made during their literature circle conversation....

Behind test scores: what struggling readers really need: why do so many children in the United States fail state and standardized reading test each year? This analysis is a look behind test scores at the specific reading abilities of students who failed one state reading test.
March 1, 2004... Every year thousands of U.S. students take standardized tests and state reading tests, and every year thousands fail them. With the implementation of the No Child Left Behind legislation (www.ed.gov/nclb/landing.jhtml), which mandates testing...

Building knowledge and fashioning success one school at a time: what is especially noteworthy about the successful schools in this study is the extent to which they had fashioned success in relation to their particular context and local communities.
March 1, 2004... For the past four years, we have been studying schools that are unusually successful in the area of literacy. At the same time, we have also been studying less successful schools to help us understand what, exactly, accounts for the varying...

Teaching Reading in Social Studies, Science, and Math.(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Laura Robb. 2003. New York: Scholastic Professional Books. 384 pp. ISBN 0-439-17669-7. US$27.95. Robb presents a wealth of ideas for using informational texts (trade books, newspapers, magazines, or textbooks) in the classroom. In a...

Are silent reading behaviors of first graders really silent? Beginning readers use a variety of subvocalization behaviors while learning to read silently Teachers should accept these behaviors as naturally occurring phenomena and provide instruction to help students become efficient, independent silent readers.
March 1, 2004... A 6-year-old boy with a shock of red hair provided the answer to the question in the title of this article during the beginning phase of our study. As he approached one of the researchers he confidently announced, "I can read!" and so he...

The Peter effect: reading habits and attitudes of preservice teachers: many preservice teachers are not avid readers themselves, and this lack of engagement may be passed on to their students.
March 1, 2004... Motivation is only one of many complex, interacting factors that contribute to the acquisition and exercise of reading proficiency. Nonetheless, it has generated a tremendous amount of much-deserved interest among reading researchers over the...

To err is human; to self-correct is to learn: teachers who value their students' self-corrections and encourage this behavior teach their students to be independent problem solvers.
March 1, 2004... We're going to hunt the terrible tiger. We're not scared of the terrible tiger. We're not scared of anything. Creep, creep over the hill. (Cowley, 1996, p. 6) Jairon (all student names are pseudonyms) was reading with no...

More equitable literacy assessments for Latino students.(Assessment)
March 1, 2004... A teacher recently came to me with the end-of-year reading test scores for her Latino students. Her principal wanted to know what she was going to do to improve their scores. The teacher was not provided with any other information useful for...

Nonfiction as literature: an untapped goldmine.(Children's Books)
March 1, 2004... Whether you refer to it as nonfiction, content area reading, or informational text, the genre it represents is often neglected--or, heaven forbid, thought of in the context of history or science textbooks. Nonfiction has struggled to find its...