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Presents a basic framework for guiding children in report writing using children's informational books as models in the process. Discusses various aspects of report writing. Describes specific book titles as they relate to these aspects. (MG)

Reading comprehension of informational texts has been largely debated and introduced at all levels of education across western countries. However, it has not received enough attention in developing countries including Vietnam. This paper aims to investigate the procedure of reading and comprehension of informational texts in high schools in Vietnam. The study surveyed 588 teachers and 2744 high school students across all regions of Vietnam. The survey questionnaires asked teachers and students' opinions on the teaching and learning of informational texts. Through statistical analysis with Excel sheets, the results show that the part of informational texts in the curriculum was small when compared with literary texts. This shows that there is very little requirement of teaching and learning informational text in high schools which results in students' limited ability in reading informational text. The findings also suggest that understanding and reading informational texts have been contended as essential to the educational performance of students. The research also revealed that both teachers and students need to be more prepared in the classrooms to teach and learn informational texts. It is recommended that Vietnamese general education curricula should include a greater amount of informational texts in textbooks and instruction on informational texts should be given more attention to improve students' understanding.

To the consternation and dismay of its critics, the 12-year basic education program is now in full swing in the Philippines. The concerns over the implementation of this purportedly neoliberal educational policy have included the displacement of education workers, the perennial shortage of school facilities (especially in the public schools), and financial impact on low-income families. There has also been a concern over the ostensibly western orientation of the country's educational system because of colonialism. However, as this paper argues, there are also spaces for an empowering and critical pedagogy as defined by Paulo Freire. The principles of critical pedagogy, for instance, can be deployed through the inclusion of non-canonical and insurgent literature in at least two new courses in the curriculum--21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World and Creative Nonfiction. One particular example of such literature is the testimonial narrative or testimonio, a first-person narrative about experiences of abuse and other forms of injustice. The paper includes a survey of studies that foreground the use of testimonios in education, and argues that the same strategy can be used in the Philippines' new curriculum. The use of testimonios in literature and other disciplines may constitute an attempt at locating alternative knowledges and cultural modalities while surfacing the narratives of Philippine society's marginalized sectors.