Search

This article investigates differential investment by men in children by using a biosocial perspective to examine their financial expenditures on their genetic children and stepchildren from both current and former relationships. It uses a sample of 635 children age 0-12 years drawn from the Albuquerque Men Study 1990-93, which involved interviews that examined marital, reproductive, and employment histories and expenditures on children. This article also examines selection efforts by restricting the sample to men with children in more than one category (e.g., men with both genetic children and stepchildren in current unions), explaining that selection effects are important. Results indicate that men with both genetic offspring and step-offspring in current relationships invest similarly in children, but the differences between offspring from current and previous unions are greater when comparing men with children in both categories. The results are consistent with the biosocial model advanced in the paper. (Contains 73 references.) (SM)

This report addresses how literacy teachers can teach everything that their students need to develop the foundational skills and strategies of literacy, without sacrificing a focus on higher-level thinking about substantive content and good literature. It also addresses the impact on student learning when teachers use a literature-based reading program framework. The authors/educators and members of the Teachers Learning Collaborative present the results of a 3-year collaborative effort to create an innovative literacy curriculum framework that would support teachers' dual--and often competing--commitments in literacy instruction: (1) to make sure that all students have the opportunity to learn literacy skills and strategies with texts that are at their instructional level; and (2) to make sure that all students have access to, and instruction with, texts that are appropriate to their age level, even if the students are unable to read such materials without support. The report describes the result of their efforts, the Book Club Plus instructional framework. It first details the framework's conceptual foundations and the problem that it was designed to address, before describing the implementation of Book Club Plus in a third grade classroom. It concludes by presenting three cases, reflecting the diversity of students taking part in the program and the ways in which those students benefited from their participation in Book Club Plus and related activities. Includes 5 figures and 19 citations of children's books. (Contains 31 references.) (NKA)

The question explored in this report is whether electronic networks are effective tools for creating and sustaining reflective teacher communities. Over the past two decades, computer mediated communication (CMC) technologies have been used in a variety of efforts aimed at fostering teacher learning and teacher collaboration. A study sought to closely examine the literature on the use of electronic networks for creating reflective teacher communities. Limiting the analysis to those publications that addressed at least some aspect of teacher discourse supported by telecommunications yielded approximately 50 papers, and after eliminating those papers of general discussion of electronic networks, 28 papers were left. It was found that many teacher networks pursued the goal of building learning and reflective communities for teachers, and much was expected out of these networks, both as a practical solution to the stubborn problems in teacher professional development and as a new agent to create what is difficult to realize in face-to-face situations. However, it was also found that there is a general lack of rigorous research on the subject. Little is known about the effectiveness of CMC for teacher learning. Few researchers have seriously examined the degree to which these networks indeed were "communities" that promoted reflective discourses. (Contains 54 references and 3 tables of data.) (NKA)

This report addresses the question of whether culturally specific strategies are an effective means for literacy instruction, and how a culturally specific computer-based architecture, the "Lyric Reader," takes advantage of children's existing knowledge and experience to motivate them to read. Given the reading difficulties experienced by many American children and the increasing diversity of the nation's student population, educators are recognizing that reading instruction must take advantage of the knowledge and experiences that individual children bring to the classroom. The report describes a computer-based architecture entitled "Lyric Reader" that combines reading strategies, motivating activities, and personalized guidance with popular rap music and children's song lyrics to present contextualized reading instruction--exemplified by two of its applications, "Rappin' Reader" and "Say Say Oh Playmate." The two are contrasted to show how "Lyric Reader" facilitates pedagogically consistent but contextually unique environments for beginning readers. A third application, "Nursery Rhyme Reader," is under development, as is a tool suite that will allow non-programmers to develop new "Lyric Reader" programs, tasks, and content. Includes 8 figures, 9 tables, and 5 notes. (Contains 18 references.) (NKA)

This report explores how sociocultural factors affect reading engagement, literacy learning, and achievement among a diverse group of learners. The report examines previous theory and research on motivation in the area of reading (reading engagement) from a sociocultural perspective. It describes a study that examined the issue of reading engagement with 18 third-grade Spanish-speaking children and families in an impoverished southern California inner city school--specifically, the relationship between sociocultural factors (organizational features of families' daily living routines) and student reading engagement. It states that the overall purpose of the study was to examine the issue of literacy engagement in "at-risk" children. Case studies also were used to illustrate how reading motivation is embedded in daily practices and how accounts of reading motivation that are focused strictly on the individual in isolation may miss the complexity of factors that are integral aspects of students' reading and later literacy development. Includes 3 figures, 4 tables, and 2 notes. (Contains 71 references.) (NKA)

This report addresses how reading comprehension can be assessed when children have limited decoding skills. Successful teachers use reading assessments for many purposes. A Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement (CIERA) survey of 496 teachers in "beat the odds" schools revealed that they use many informal reading tasks to assess children's skills, knowledge, and fluency on a daily basis. They use "internal" assessments under their control more often than "external" assessments created by publishers or mandated by others. Paradoxically, teachers believe that administrators give more attention to external, high-stakes assessments than the internal assessments of daily work that are linked to instruction. It is also paradoxical that teachers report their training for internal assessments as "Good" but their training to use external assessments was only "Fair." This report outlines the benefits of a developmental approach to early reading assessment based on teachers' internal assessments that are tailored selectively for children and the curriculum. (Contains 4 tables, guidelines for assessment with children 3-8 years of age, and 26 references.) (NKA)

Today, under an array of market pressures and increased competition, institutional researchers, administrators, and faculty are being called on to work in more collaborative cross-institutional arrangements. This paper uses a case study method to describe the process of forming a Civic Engagement Cluster, a collaborative of 10 different institutions, and to illustrate and identify lessons for institutions involved in designing and developing multi-organizational collaboratives. Thirty interviews were conducted with leaders of initiatives at nine institutions and documents related to the Kellogg Forum on Higher Education Transformation (KFHET) initiative were reviewed. From the experiences of KFHET participants, a number of lessons can be drawn. It was apparent that the nature of academic work can keep institutions isolated and competing with each other rather than collaborating. Semantic problems are often roadblocks, and ambiguous collaborative and project goals can lead to confusion. Organizational structure can have a direct effect on the collaborative, and time demands from outside the Cluster can distract participants. In general, any attempt to change institutions can be considered difficult. It will involve a reconceptualization of current practice on the part of key institutional actors. Appendixes contain a KFHET time line, project descriptions, a description of the Civic Engagement Cluster structure, and cluster institution descriptions. (Contains 16 references.) (SLD)

Over 1,000 colleges and universities have joined the America Reads initiative and have placed Federal Work-Study students in high-needs schools, the majority in urban settings. Few outside the reading field recognize the complexities associated with instruction for emergent readers, particularly for students who arrive at school with few literacy skills. Among other things, tutors must understand the importance of alphabet knowledge, letter-sound correspondences, and the development of a concept of word. Indeed, the training and continual supervision of tutors is one factor that must be considered in a successful intervention effort. Book Buddies is a community volunteer one-on-one tutoring program that uses a triad of individuals to work toward a child's reading success. The triad consists of the child, the volunteer tutor, and the reading coordinator. Tutors follow a structured sequence of activities using the Book Buddies 4-part lesson plan that consists of the following basic elements: (1) rereading familiar story books; (2) word study; (3) writing; and (4) reading a new book. This paper describes a Book Buddies program in an elementary school in the South Bronx, NY (the poorest Congressional District in the nation), in which members from the Retired Senior Volunteer Project were recruited and trained to tutor first-grade children. The paper concludes that Book Buddies in the Bronx was an intervention project in which the children who received 40 Book Buddies lessons statistically significantly surpassed the students in the control group on measures of accurate word reading in context, letter identification, and word reading in isolation. (Contains 12 references.) (NKA)

Minority children are often thought to lack an achievement orientation. This paper discusses the home and community contexts of Latina/o immigrant children in a low-income community in Southern California, to demonstrate how sociocultural factors interact to produce motivation. Findings reveal that even among demographically similar families, a diverse set of constraints and affordances are at play which significantly impact students achievement orientations toward literacy and schooling. Further, findings indicate that the families' daily struggles to negotiate within a linguistically and culturally unfamiliar environment make the importance of literacy--particularly English literacy--quite transparent to children. (Contains 37 references and 2 tables of data.) (Author/RS)

This paper explains the creation and validation of the Narrative Comprehension of Picture Books task (NC task), an assessment of young children's comprehension of wordless picture books. Study 1 explored developmental improvements in the task, as well as relationships to other measures of early reading. Subjects, 158 K-2 students, were administered the NC task. Those children who could read were also given a measure of oral reading and comprehension, while nonreaders received an assessment that measured early literacy skills. There was significant improvement with increasing age on NC task measures. Significant relationships were also found between the NC task and several early literacy skills for nonreaders. Study 2 tested the generalizability of the NC task. A subsample of 91 students received 2 additional picture books. Inter-task correlations showed that children were consistent on each of the NC task-dependent variables across the three books. The same developmental trends by grade and reading ability were evident on all three versions of the task. The NC task appears to be a valid quantitative measure of young children's comprehension that is sensitive to developmental changes and adaptable to other books. The authors discuss how narrative comprehension is fundamental to beginning reading and how the NC task may be used for classroom instruction and assessment. (Contains 20 references and 8 tables of data. Appendixes contain an NC task "picture walk"; comprehension questions; scoring rubrics; a description of the Qualitative Reading Inventory--II and the Michigan Literacy Progress Profile.) (RS)

This report focuses on results of a systematic study of instructional assessments of early literacy designed by teachers and other educators for use in K-3 classrooms. The report presents the methodology and coding scheme used for collecting classroom-based measures and evaluating their content. It provides data about how reading and writing skills are assessed by teachers and shows the relationship between the skills included on these assessments and the skills associated with national standards and benchmarks. It also characterizes the instructional assessments teachers use in their classrooms to evaluate their students' literacy performance in terms of categories of skills assessed, types of assessment models utilized, differences in student responses elicited by the assessments, forms of administration, types of mental processing required of students, and other parameters. The discussion concerns questions about the psychometric properties of these assessments, their relationship to national standards, and their place in the instructional process for classroom teachers. (Contains 127 references, and 19 tables and 5 figures of data. Appendixes contain a coding manual for informal literacy assessments; a summary of assessments (in tabular form); a table listing the number of specific skills or elements by assessment; a list of skills or elements included in the assessments; and a narrative description of two measures and the output of each assessment.) (Author/RS)

This study examines 240 preschool teachers' self-reported literacy beliefs and practices. Participants taught three- and four-year-olds in publicly funded preschools that are part of the Virginia Preschool Initiative program. Teachers completed a Preschool Literacy Practices Checklist that asked about their beliefs and practices regarding literacy, as well as teacher and classroom characteristics. The work experience and education of the individuals surveyed were comparable to those of national samples of elementary school teachers. The majority of teachers included literacy instruction in their daily plans, endorsed literacy acquisition as a goal of their teaching, and used many approaches to promote early literacy. Their beliefs about the importance of 16 literacy-related skills were organized around three factors: alphabet knowledge, word and story knowledge, and verbal language. Teachers varied most widely in their beliefs about the importance of alphabet knowledge for development of four-year-olds' literacy. Teachers whose preparation included greater coursework in reading endorsed beliefs and used practices more closely associated with promoting verbal language skills and analytic phonics. These results have implications for theories of literacy development and the role of public preschools in promoting literacy. (Contains 40 references, 6 tables of data, and the survey instrument.) (Author/RS)

Thirteen Latina teachers were interviewed regarding their memories of and experiences with getting into college and getting degrees in education. Data came from the second phase of a 2-year study. In the first phase, researchers examined teachers' early childhood reading experiences. This study used individual interviews and focus groups to explore how respondents decided to go to college, the reaction of family and peers, sources of encouragement, barriers, the application process, and academic and social situations. Results indicated that respondents often encountered rigid gender, ethnic, and cultural expectations in their quest for higher education as well as a lack of institutional support in their university settings. They received support in overcoming challenges from high school instructors, home-school coordinators, college friends, family friends, and siblings. All respondents viewed college as critical to personal and professional success. Although respondents faced resistance from the university, they found support and friendship within the university's Latino culture. (Contains 29 references.) (SM)

This paper offers a developmental perspective on college drinking by focusing on broad developmental themes during adolescence and the transition to young adulthood. Heavy drinking increases during the transition to college, with significant interindividual variation in the course and consequences. The majority of young people make it through these years with, on balance, more positive than negative experiences with alcohol, but some experience tragic consequences and others develop chronic problems of abuse and dependence. The transition to college is a critical developmental transition, with major individual and contextual change in every domain of life leading to the potential for discontinuity and change in functioning and adjustment. Normative developmental transitions of adolescence and young adulthood are reviewed, focusing specifically on fundamental biological and cognitive changes; transitions of identity; changes in affiliations with the family of origin, peers, and romantic partners; and achievement transitions related to school and work. These transitions offer important vantage points for examining increasing (and decreasing) substance use and other health risks during adolescence and young adulthood. Final sections review research and policy implications, including broad implications for developmental interventions and more specific recommendations for alcohol-specific programming. (Contains 279 references, 3 tables, and 2 figures.) (Author/GCP)

This occasional paper updates and extends earlier papers in the Monitoring the Future project. It provides a detailed description of the project's design, including sampling design; data collection procedures; measurement content; and questionnaire format. It attempts to include sufficient information for others who wish to evaluate the results, to replicate aspects of the study, or to analyze data that is archived. Although there have been additions to the study design and procedures, the basic study design described in a 1978 paper has remained constant in its fundamental characteristics, which is considered the key condition for its ability to successfully measure change. Following an introduction and overview, this paper presents the scope, purposes, and rationale for the nationwide sampling of 8th, 10th, and 12th grade students. In the measures section, an overview is presented of the conceptual framework of the study, the outline of questionnaire content, the questionnaire organization, and the consent and format of the 8th and 10th grade questionnaires. Sampling and data collection procedures are included in the next section, which is followed by the representativeness and validity. (Contains 2 tables, 3 figures, and 106 references.) (JDM)

Monitoring the Future is an ongoing program of research intended to assess the changing lifestyles, values, and preferences of American youth. This publication, from the occasional paper series, describes a study that monitors drug use and potential explanatory factors among American secondary school students, college students, and young adults. The study aims to monitor drug use and related factors in order to provide social indicators of historical change, to distinguish the three types of change (age, period, cohort), and to analyze results at both individual and aggregate levels. Eleven specific objectives of the study are described and each is explained, including its logic and rationale, relevant theory, literature cited, and progress. Objectives 1 through 3 concern drug use and potential explanatory factors; Objective 4 distinguishes which kinds of change are occurring for various types of drug use; Objectives 5 through 9 study the causes, consequences, and developmental patterns associated with types of change in drug use; and Objectives 10 and 11 list additional methodological, policy, data-sharing, and other objectives. (Contains over 500 references.) (JDM)

Researchers have seldom examined whether risk and protective factors are consistently linked to substance use across historical time. Using nationally representative data collected from 22 consecutive cohorts of high school seniors (approximate N=188,000) from the Monitoring the Future project, this study investigated whether correlates of substance use, and variance explained by domains of correlates, changed across historical time. The study found a high degree of consistency across historical time in predictors of past month cigarette use, past month alcohol use, past year marijuana use, and past year cocaine use. Some predictors such as religiosity, political beliefs, truancy, and frequent evenings out were consistently linked to substance use. The consistency of other predictors such as region, parental education, and college plans was contingent in part upon historical time period, the particular substance, and its level of use. The study also found that correlates within the Academics domain explained the most variance in substance use over the past two decades. (Contains 4 tables and 34 references.) (Author/JDM)

Given the central role of television in most children's lives, it is important to understand its potential positive and negative effects on a variety of cognitive, academic, social, behavioral, and attitudinal outcomes. A study aims to explore the relation between early television viewing and later reading achievement. Motivating the research is the growing evidence that young children's attention to and comprehension of television is more sophisticated than previously thought. Although preschoolers have some difficulty understanding full-length adult programs, they are adept at making sense of televised segments produced specifically for their age group. Results of recent research suggest that there is considerable overlap between the comprehension processes that take place during reading and those in prereading television viewing. Present research uses a longitudinal design in which media habits, various kinds of television and text comprehension skills, and background variables for children at three time periods spaced two years apart are assessed. To date, 28 preschool four-year-olds and 95 first grade six-year-olds in the Minneapolis area have been tested. Participants view televised programs (episodes of "Rugrats") and then complete a range of comprehension tasks. In addition, they receive a series of comprehension and early literacy tests. Preliminary results reveal that although both groups perform better on the television memory and comprehension test than on the test of aural story memory and comprehension, individual differences are highly consistent across media. Performances on the memory and recall tasks were very strongly related. Once data collection is completed, other analyses will be conducted. (Contains 30 references.) (NKA)

Current reform initiatives often call for facilitators to work with teachers and administrators in the change process. Although this facilitating position is becoming more common, little is currently understood about specific purposes of this role and the forms it might take. This study examines the work of four facilitators involved in five different successful reform programs focusing on early reading intervention (Success for All, Reading Recovery, Literacy Program, Eclectic School Program, and the State Standards Project). These facilitators are instrumental in different approaches to reform ranging from externally adopted to internally developed interventions. Findings examine the different roles of facilitation as viewed by the facilitators themselves (based on data from interviews) in relation to these different approaches to reform. Common issues and dilemmas are examined. Contains 23 references and 2 figures. (Author/RS)

This paper describes attempts to implement an emergent literacy intervention in a child-care setting in a high-poverty, Spanish bilingual setting in downtown Los Angeles. Specifically, it discusses the authors' work with a particular preschool teacher, explaining how the research team and the teacher were able to overcome their original biases and collaboratively develop an intervention that was truly responsive to the needs of the children and the community. Contains 25 references and 2 figures. (Author/RS)

This paper explores the concept of "at-riskness" as defined by Head Start and elementary school professionals who work together in the same building. Using Bruner's (1996) idea of "folk theories," the authors show that the two groups' theories of at-riskness conflict and discuss how these definitions impact their practice with at-risk children. The authors used a series of exploratory interviews that probed for information about (1) student and family factors that contributed to at-riskness; (2) teacher and school responses to, expectations for, and beliefs about at-risk students; and (3) teacher and school intervention strategies for these students. They found that Head Start teachers and administrators, in general, were committed to working with children and families as a unit and assumed that parents were invested in their children's education, while elementary school administrators and teachers tended to identify a lack of parental involvement as disinterest and locate the responsibility for at-riskness within the individual child or family. Head Start and elementary school professionals need to begin conversations on this subject in order to bridge the gaps between the two programs. Contains 29 references and a table of data. (Author/RS)

This study examined the relationship between family structure, expenditures on education, and children's educational outcomes for black South Africans, using the nationally representative 1995 October Household Survey. The analyses focused on 28,215 individuals, ages 10 to 24 years, who had not completed secondary schools. The findings indicated that although enrollment levels were high for most ages, schooling advancement rates were well under one grade per year, suggesting high rates of grade repetition. Controlling for background factors, family structure was highly correlated with educational outcomes. The strongest effects were seen for children living with neither of their genetic parents, who were less likely to be enrolled in school, had completed fewer grades, were older for their grade if enrolled, and had less money spent on their school fees and school-related transportation costs than children living with both genetic parents. Children who lived with single mothers were also disadvantaged for most measures. Family structure played a strong role in the probability that a child was enrolled in school; additional effects were evident, although diminished in strength, for outcomes affecting only enrolled students, age delays for grade, and financial expenditures on schooling. In addition, past academic progress influenced expenditures on school; children who were behind in school for their age (indicative of previous grade repetition) had less money spent on their schooling, above and beyond the effects of family structure on schooling expenditures. The findings suggest that family structure is an important contributor to educational inequality in South Africa, although there are important caveats regarding self-selection into different family types, as well as issues of school quality. (Contains 63 references.) (Author/KB)

Isolated from other professionals, teachers and their practice are embedded within a hierarchical system in which the day-to-day activities are governed by external forces: administrative mandates, parental request, and currently, legislative directives. One issue facing teachers today and about which their voices are infrequently heard is that of culture, and the growing diversity of the pupil population of the United States. This diversity stands in contrast to a notable lack of apparent diversity in the teaching force. This paper is about teacher study groups as activity settings where teachers might break free of that isolation and engage in powerful learning about culture and literacy. The paper reports on research conducted from 1995 through 1997 on two study group contexts for teacher learning--one focused on exploring culture, literacy, and autobiography through a master's course, and a subsequent voluntary book club called the Literary Circle, which continued for two years. The paper states that the study of the activity settings and participants' conversations in the course and the book club led to the theorizing about the meaning of "sustain" and "sustainable" when referring to teacher development in study groups. It first describes the research into the two study groups, as well as the underlying rationale for the thematic focus and value placed on conversations within the study group. It then shifts focus to a discussion of sustainability in light of the groups' described activities and subsequent initiatives. (Contains 27 references.) (NKA)

This paper discusses reading instruction in the 20th century. The paper begins with a tour of the historical pathways that have led people, at the century's end, to the "rocky and highly contested terrain educators currently occupy in reading pedagogy." After the author/educator unfolds his version of a map of that terrain in the paper, he speculates about pedagogical journeys that lie ahead in a new century and a new millennium. Although the focus is reading pedagogy, the paper seeks to connect the pedagogy to the broader scholarly ideas of each period. According to the paper, developments in reading pedagogy over the last century suggest that it is most useful to divide the century into thirds, roughly 1900-1935, 1935-1970, and 1970-2000. The paper states that, as a guide in constructing a map of past and present, a legend is needed, a common set of criteria for examining ideas and practices in each period--several candidates suggest themselves, such as the dominant materials used by teachers in each period and the dominant pedagogical practices. It also suggests other important points of comparison, such as the role of the teacher and the learner in the process of learning to read, which lie beneath the instructional surface and require deeper inferences, greater interpretation, and more unpacking for observation and analysis. The paper contends that, for each set of practices, the most difficult task will be to understand the underlying assumptions about the "nature of reading and learning to read" that motivate dominant practices in each period. (Contains 1 table and 128 notes.) (NKA)

This paper reports on an examination of the strategies that one of the researchers (Donovan), then a first-grade teacher, modeled while reading information books aloud in class. Returning to previously tape-recorded read aloud sessions, the researchers studied student and teacher responses during the reading of six storybooks and six information books, considering whether the different genres prompted different types of participant interactions. The researchers found that interactive information book read alouds may lead children to engage in more meaning-making efforts than storybooks do. The interactive information book read alouds provided context for scaffolding, modeling, and engaging in direct instruction of comprehension; this context also offered opportunities for students to engage interactively in discussion designed to clarify concepts and construct meaning. The paper stresses that developing an interactional stance during reading is critical to promoting comprehension acquisition. Comprehension acquisition, which would preclude actual comprehension instruction, is a subconscious process in which children absorb strategies via modeling by adults. This period would begin in preschool and continue into second grade and could make children more receptive to later formal comprehension instruction. Informational texts are useful choices in these cases because they emphasize construction of concepts. The paper calls for future research to examine the nature of comprehension acquisition and for research in teacher training for both comprehension acquisition and instruction. Contains 120 references. (NKA)

College enrollment rates of blacks have historically trailed those of whites, although the actual size of the racial gap has fluctuated in recent decades. Using logistic regression and a decomposition analysis, this study investigated the extent to which this college-going gap is due to racial disparities in socioeconomic family backgrounds, academic performance, and expectations and values about education. Sizable differences are found between blacks and whites in socioeconomic family background and academic performance, as well as interactions between race and these variables. However, expectations and values about education are similar between the groups and contribute little to racial disparities in college attendance. (Contains 2 figures, 4 tables, and 43 references.) (SLD)

This paper investigates the validity of two current approaches for estimating text difficulty at the first-grade level--the Scale for Text Accessibility and Support-Grade 1 (STAS-1) and the Fountas/ Pinnell system--and analyzed student performance in relation to each. Subjects, 105 first graders in two schools, used "little books"--easy to read tiny paperbacks that serve as leveled practice materials for beginning readers. The schools are located in an urban area, 90% Latino, low-income, and with 95% of the students qualifying for subsidized school meals. The children were tested and placed into high, middle, and low ability-based reading groups. Each child was assigned a text set to read under either a preview, modeled, or sight reading condition, and their performance was evaluated for accuracy, rate, and fluency. Results indicated that the text leveling procedures these systems employed were largely accurate. Their analysis even suggested potential benchmarks for first-grade performance: 95% accuracy, 80 words per minute, and a fluency level of 3 (on a scale of 1-5) with reading material of mid-first-grade difficulty. More research is needed to determine whether these figures hold for the larger public. Lastly, results indicated that the modeled reading condition seemed particularly supportive of children's subsequent independent reading at any level. (Contains 13 tables of data and 18 references.) (RS)

This paper provides a review of the theoretical discussions and practical studies relating to fluency instruction and reading development. The basic research strategy was to survey the range of definitions for fluency, the primary features of fluent reading, and studies that have attempted to improve the fluency of struggling readers in one of three common groupings--individually, as dyads, and in redesigns of classroom instruction. The paper encountered a range of theories supporting the role of fluency in the reading process and many studies that have attempted to improve fluency and, thereby, to improve reading more generally. It finds that: (1) fluency instruction generally seemed to be effective, although it is unclear whether it is successful because of specific instructional features or because fluency instruction involves children in reading increased amounts of text; (2) assisted approaches, such as reading-while-listening, seemed to be more effective than nonassisted approaches, such as repeated reading; (3) repetitive approaches did not seem to hold a clear advantage over nonrepetitive approaches; and (4) effective fluency instruction moved beyond automatic word recognition to include rhythm and expression, or what linguists refer to as the prosodic features of language. Appendixes contain charts listing characteristics (including number of subjects, reading level of subjects, material read, and results) of repeated reading and assisted reading studies. (Contains 117 references, 2 notes, and a table of data.) (Author/RS)

This paper presents the results of a study concerning the use of text in support of firsthand scientific inquiry instruction in the early elementary grades. A partial transcript of two teaching sessions in which an expert classroom teacher incorporated text into her inquiry instruction is investigated. The knowledge gained from these sessions helped inform the development of a new text genre modeled on a scientist's notebook. Unlike traditional texts that simply present a body of information, the notebook format models the use of scientific reasoning for children. Sections include: (1) "The Interplay of Firsthand and Text-Based Investigations in Science Education"; (2) "What Is Known about Text in Science?"; (3) "The Professional Development Context Supporting This Program of Research"; (4) "Descriptive Research on Secondhand Investigations"; (5) "Designing Text To Support Guided Inquiry Teaching"; (6) "Experimental Research Comparing the Innovative Text with Traditional Text"; (7) "Results and Discussion"; and (8) "Observational Research with the Innovative Text." (CCM)

This report examines the importance of education to women and the effects of tuition, state and federal aid programs, child care, and welfare policies on Michigan women's access to higher education. Sections of the report address the following issues: (1) why the education of women matters, noting that postsecondary education is the primary means of training women for long-term, high-wage employability; (2) the need for an educated work force to help Michigan meet business needs, reduce unemployment, decrease poverty, and strengthen families; (3) education levels of Michigan women, noting that Michigan women enter higher education institutions at a high rate but rank lower in completion rates; (4) who pays for postsecondary education in Michigan, examining scholarships and grant programs; (5) why Michigan tuition is high, reviewing public college revenues from state appropriations; (6) how the availability of child care affects educational opportunity, examining how lack of appropriate child care burdens student parents; and (7) why welfare reform limits poor women's educational opportunities. Policy recommendations regarding education, financial aid, child care, and welfare are offered. (Contains 60 references.) (SM)

In an effort to share the good news about what can be done to increase learning and achievement for students in high poverty schools, the research has been combed to pinpoint instructional and organizational factors that lead to student success. Specifically examined were how and why some schools across the country are attaining greater than expected reading achievement with populations of students who are at risk for failure by virtue of poverty. Emphasis is on the terms "instructional" and "organizational," for a thorough reading of the research leads to the conclusion that only when both classroom level (instructional) and school level (organizational) are attended to can aspirations be met to improve literacy for all students. A review of the literature on effective teachers and schools is "surprisingly convergent." Effective teachers have excellent classroom management skills and provide scaffolded, balanced literacy instruction, often in small groups, characterized by explicit instruction in skills and strategies as well as frequent opportunities for students to read, write, and talk about text. Effective schools are typically characterized as learning, collaborative communities in which staff assume a shared responsibility for all students' learning, monitor progress as a way of planning instruction for groups and individuals, help one another learn more about the art and science of teaching, and reach out to the families they serve. (Contains 3 tables and 29 references.) (NKA)

A study examined school factors and teacher factors contributing to primary grade students' reading growth and reading achievement. It investigated school and classroom variables in effective schools as compared to moderately effective and less effective schools and also looked at classroom practices of accomplished teachers as compared to less accomplished teachers. Fourteen schools in Virginia, Minnesota, Colorado, and California with from 28% to 92% of students qualifying for subsidized lunch participated. In each school two teachers in each of Grades K-3 and two low and two average readers per teacher served as subjects. Principals participated by asking teachers they judged as average or better to participate; they also completed a questionnaire on school reading practices and were interviewed. Teachers were observed for an hour of reading five times from December through April. Teachers also completed two weekly time logs of instructional activities in reading/language arts and a questionnaire of school and classroom practices related to reading. A subset of teachers were interviewed. A case study was written on each school according to a common outline. School effectiveness was significantly related to strong links with parents, systematic assessment of pupil progress, and strong building communication and collaboration. In all four of the most effective schools, teachers mentioned that reading was a priority in their building as a factor contributing to their success. Teachers in the most effective schools spent 134 minutes a day on reading instruction compared to teachers in the moderately and least effective schools who averaged 113 minutes a day on reading instruction. (NKA)

Relations among academic achievement, school bonding, school misbehavior, and cigarette use from eighth to twelfth grade were examined in two national and panel samples of youth from the Monitoring the Future project (N=3,056). A series of competing conceptual models developed a priori was tested using structural equation modeling (SEM). The findings suggest that during middle adolescence the predominant direction of influence is from school experiences to cigarette use. School misbehavior and low academic achievement contribute to increased cigarette use over time both directly and indirectly. Two-group SEM analyses involving two cohorts--gender and ethnicity--revealed that the findings are robust. In addition, comparisons between high school dropouts and non-dropouts and between eighth-grade cigarette use initiators and nonusers revealed few differences in direction or magnitude of effects. Results suggest that prevention programs that attempt to reduce school misbehavior and academic failure, as well as to help students who misbehave and have difficulty in school constructively avoid negative school and health related outcomes, are likely to be effective in reducing adolescent cigarette use. (Contains 5 tables, 2 figures, and 78 references.) (Author/MKA)

This report describes the early reading program in Emerald Elementary School, located in a Midwest urban fringe district. From 1996 through 1998, Emerald's students performed well above the district average or near the state average on reading achievement. During this period, the school had at least half of its students eligible for free or reduced lunch and a student mobility rate of approximately 40%. This exceptional achievement placed Emerald among the top-performing high-poverty schools in its state. The cornerstone of Emerald's early reading program was referred to as a literacy rotation in which Grade 1 students had access to four small-group instructional approaches for two hours weekly. Beyond the literacy rotation, a variety of safety nets for supporting struggling readers was identified. At a broader level, several mechanisms for facilitating communication among the staff, professional development, collaboration, and participation in state and federal educational initiatives were found. Analysis of the early reading program identified five key elements of school operation: focus on student outcomes; multiple reading programs in every classroom; shared responsibility for student success; strong leadership at school and classroom levels; and a veteran, knowledgeable staff. These elements were related to resource allocations within the school. Contains 1 figure, 3 tables of data, 8 notes, and 24 references. (Author/NKA)

A study considered the tasks for beginning readers posed by currently available beginning reading programs. A set of guidelines for evaluating beginning reading texts was identified. According to the model used, such texts should be "engaging, accessible, and generalizable." These guidelines were used to examine the literature components of these influential first-grade reading programs--a Literature-Core (LC), a mixed Literature/Phonics (LP), and a Phonics-Core (PC) program. The study found that (1) all three programs rated favorably on the content portion of the "engagingness" scale, though the LC program rated higher in terms of language and design; (2) none of the texts proved to be very accessible; and (3) all of the programs introduce children to most of the 100 most frequent words in English. Even the very early texts, however, introduce children to a large number of rimes without providing many repetitions of them, which renders the text less generalizable. As a group, these three programs do not attend to text characteristics that are crucial in promoting reading acquisition. If struggling readers are not to be left behind, these issues must be addressed before early reading texts are published and selected. Contains 2 figures, 7 tables of data, and 41 references. Appendix A contains "Text Engagingness Rating Scales"; Appendix B lists the "100 Most Highly Frequent Words in English"; and Appendix C contains the "Description of Decodability Levels." (NKA)

Progress in integration of state-level welfare and work force development systems in the Midwest was examined through case studies of 10 communities in 7 states. The case studies focused on local-level coordination and/or integration between the welfare and work force development systems. Despite legislative mechanisms to encourage collaboration, separate funding streams were still keeping the two systems apart in six of the seven states. Despite recent shifts in agencies' work and goals, the welfare and work force development systems were continuing to operate independently of one another. The following were among the identified challenges to collaboration: changing organizational missions; organizational staffing issues; lack of coordinated service delivery; disconnected funds; and lack of shared outcomes. The following are among the eight strategies recommended for achieving integration: (1) increase the flexibility of federal and state program regulations; (2) develop common reporting and performance measures for welfare-to-work programs to encourage joint planning and coordinated service delivery; (3) identify collaborative strategies that have proved effective in different settings; and (4) gather unified local employer relations teams to develop partnerships with employers. (The bibliography contains 19 references. The following items are appended: a state matrix; local site descriptions; and a list of project participants.) (MN)

A study implemented and evaluated the Book Buddies model using National Service volunteers as tutors for high-risk first-grade students in a high-poverty urban setting. Using a design with a randomly assigned control group, results show that tutoring sessions produced clear effects. Children who received 40 Book Buddies lessons significantly surpassed students in the control group in letter identification, word reading in isolation, and accurate reading in context. Results contribute to understanding of the constraints and conditions of implementing effective volunteer tutoring in challenging circumstances; as well as underscoring the importance of key components for ensuring quality tutoring for the America Reads Challenge. Contains 18 references, and a table and a figure of data. (EF)