ERIC Annotated Bibliographies in Literacy
Delineated in easy-to-follow nontechnical language, this book provides a multitude of tested informal assessment strategies and devices, such as "kid watching," retellings, journals, informal reading inventories, writing surveys, portfolios, and think alouds. The book presents more than 200 reproducible assessment devices. The book helps elementary classroom, remedial reading, and learning disabilities teachers make the best possible informal assessment of a child's specific reading, writing, and spelling strengths and weaknesses and attitudes toward reading. Chapters in the book are: (1) Using Informal Devices in Assessing Reading and Writing Ability; (2) Using Checklists and Other Informal Devices to Assess Competencies and Weaknesses in Visual Perception Ability, Emergent Literacy Skills, Word-Identification Skills, and Oral Reading; (3) Using Checklists and Other Informal Devices to Assess Competencies and Weaknesses in Vocabulary, Comprehension Skills, Basic Study Skills, and Silent Reading; (4) Using Miscue Analysis in Assessing Competencies and Weaknesses in Reading; (5) Variations of the Individual Reading Inventory; (6) Using Informal Inventories and Other Informal Assessment Devices in the Word-Identification Techniques; (7) Additional Alternative Ways of Assessing Reading Skills and Attitudes; (8) Using Checklists to Assess Competencies and Weaknesses in Drawing, Writing, and Spelling; (9) Using Holistic Scoring and the Informal Writing Inventory to Assess Writing; (10) Other Alternative Means of Assessing Writing and Spelling Ability; (11) Using Portfolio Assessment in Any Literacy Program; and (12) Closing Thoughts. (RS) 495p.; Produced by the Center for Applied Research in Education
Promoting the idea that teachers can make sophisticated diagnostic judgments and can identify appropriate instructional techniques, this book delineates the process of diagnostic teaching so that teachers can make such judgments and identify such techniques. The book is designed to supplement course work in the diagnosis and remediation of reading difficulties. The instructional techniques in the book are written in a step-by-step fashion so that classroom teachers and practicum students can readily follow the prescribed procedures. Chapters in the book are: (1) What Is Diagnostic Teaching?; (2) The Reading Event; (3) Roles of Diagnostic Teachers; (4) The Diagnostic Teaching Session: An Overview; (5) Gathering Diagnostic Data; (6) Formulating Diagnostic Hypotheses; (7) Assessment Using Diagnostic Lessons; (8) Assessment Using Portfolios; (9) Selecting Techniques; and (10) The Instructional Techniques. Contains approximately 200 references. An appendix on administering an informal reading assessment is attached.
Outlines the potential for using whole language for remediation of reading disabilities. Criticizes current approaches to remediation. Discusses six principles of whole language instruction that are effective for remediation. Describes four whole-language programs that have successfully remediated students. Suggests alternative assessment measures.
This guide to authentic assessment strategies for teachers of students with and without disabilities explains how to incorporate authentic assessments into everyday practice, including observation techniques, anecdotal records, error analysis, miscue analysis, "think-alouds," self-evaluation questionnaires and interviews, journals and learning logs, and portfolio assessment.
Gives a brief history of miscue analysis, and then describes miscue analysis procedures, how to code and analyze miscues, and the reader's knowledge of the language cuing systems. Includes an appendix of markings for miscue analysis.
This article challenges the word-identification view of reading and the resultant assumption that anyone who has difficulty reading words is dyslexic. It describes research demonstrating that word identification is less important in proficient reading than coordinating various language cues and metacognitive strategies to construct meaning. The use of retrospective miscue analysis in tutoring is explained.
This report presents a first look at national and state-level findings of students' overall proficiency in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 1994 reading assessment for grades 4, 8, and 12 and provides comparisons with the performance of their 1992 counterparts. The first chapter introduces the report, discussing topics such as the NAEP, the national sample, the trial state assessment program, the proficiency scale, achievement levels, and cautions in interpretations. The second and third chapters present a first look at the average reading proficiency and the attainment of achievement levels by America's students, discussing average national reading proficiency and average reading proficiency by region and by major reporting subgroups (race/ethnicity, gender, parents' educational level, public and nonpublic schools, and cross-state proficiency findings). Major findings include: (1) the average reading proficiency of twelfth-grade students declined significantly from 1992 to 1994; (2) across all three grade levels, female students continued to display higher reading achievement than male students; (3) reading proficiency was higher on average for students whose parents had more education; and (4) students attending nonpublic schools displayed higher average reading proficiency than their counterparts attending public schools. Appendixes present national and state sample descriptions, reporting subgroup(s) definitions, comparisons among states based on average proficiency, cross-state proficiency and achievement level tabular summaries, and state contextual background factors.
In this document, recent literature on schools' attempts to involve parents in the education of their children and on the rationale for parent involvement is evaluated. Research reviewed concerns parent involvement programs designed to improve student academic performance, increase student attendance, decrease behaviors that leave students at risk, decrease school operating costs, and involve families that speak no or little English. It is asserted that it is doubtful whether the many intervention strategies to increase parent involvement in schools are as effective as program planners might desire, and that the large number of programs described in the literature suggest that not every parent is as involved with their child's education as the schools might want them to be. Parents may have low levels of involvement in the child's education because they have rarely been involved in their child's education in the past; because their child is doing fine in school and further involvement on the part of the parent is not needed; or because the parent feels it is the schools' job to educate the child and refuses to take on any of the responsibility for the child's education. The need for communication between home and school and the need to link parent involvement programs with the needs of the parents and the school are considered.
Thinking through question/response cues. (chart); Double entry/response journal sample. (table); Student journal entry about similarities and differences. (chart); Student double entry in journal. (table); Change in self-concept of sixth-grade at-risk students. (graph)
Previous theoretical and empirical analyses indicate that an extrinsic motivational orientation, i.e., performing activities to please others or concern with criticism, predicts the cognitive and behavioral deficits associated with learned helplessness. Conversely, intrinsically motivated stuents, who perform activities for the inherent pleasure of mastery over challenge, have been shown to be virtually resilient to successive failure experiences and even show a facilitation effect. However, research has not yet addressed the extent to which motivational orientation predicts the emotional deficits associated with helplessness--namely, depression and a maladaptive attributional style. Furthermore, no research has examined the relative predictability of these variables to investigate subjects' feelings after an experimental manipulation of failure. The present research found support for the proposition that an extrinsic motivational orientation predicts depression and the Expanded Attributional Style Questionnaire. More importantly, our findings demonstrated that an extrinsic motivational orientation was a more reliable predictor of subjects' feelings after a failure manipulation than either depression or a maladaptive attributional style. These findings are discussed in light of intervention strategies to attenuate the development of an extrinsic motivational orientation in students. COPYRIGHT Plenum Publishing Corporation 1991.
Intrinsic Motivation in Reading
Examined familial factors in relation to 93 fifth-graders' motivational orientation and academic performance. High parental surveillance of homework; parental reactions to grades that included negative control, uninvolvement, or extrinsic reward; and over- and undercontrolling family styles were found to be related to children's extrinsic motivational orientation and low academic performance .
Argues that effective instruction for children with reading difficulties relies little on accurate diagnosis. Maintains that standardized reading tests can help identify children with reading problems. Asserts that children with reading difficulties would be better served by more instruction and less diagnosis.
Examined experienced reading failure among 708 first- and third-grade children. Findings using test-identified failure revealed equal proportions of boys and girls represented in Reading Disabled category. Teacher-identified ratios of boys to girls receiving learning-disabled services were 2:1, exceeding test-identified ratios, whereas identification for Chapter One services did not show gender difference.
Discusses ways to help motivate reluctant readers. Topics include early reading experiences of aliterate readers; the value of reading-related activities like book clubs and reading clubs; other activities that motivate and/or discourage readers; the role of parents, teachers, and librarians; and narrowing choices to make book selection easier.
A total of 125 7-year-old students who were poor readers were assigned to 1 of 4 experimental teaching conditions: reading with phonology, reading alone, phonology alone, or a control. Although the phonology alone group showed the most improvement on phonological tasks, the reading with phonology group made the most progress in reading improvement.
Phi Delta Kappa study collected data on over 21,000 students in grades 4, 7, and 10 in 275 schools in over 80 U.S. communities. Five risk factors emerged: personal pain, academic failure, family socioeconomic status, family instability, and family tragedy. Many teachers helped considerably with personal pain and academic failure problems, especially in high-effort schools with intensive assistance programs.
This study examined retention in grades K-8 using data from the 1988 National Education Longitudinal Study. Male, minority, and lower socioeconomic status (SES) students were more likely to be retained. Retention related to less optimal academic and personal-social outcomes, particularly for female, white,
This study of students at risk was conducted to determine who is at risk, what puts students at risk, what schools are doing to help those students, and how effective these efforts are. Data were collected on about 49,000 students and almost 10,000 teachers in over 275 schools in 85 U.S. communities, and researchers conducted case studies of 65 young people. This book presents 11 of these case studies of at-risk public school students in the 1980s: (1) "Nicole, Seeking Attention"; (2) "Roach, Case Study of a Murderer"; (3) "Julie, Falling through the Cracks"; (4) "David, Growing Up Alone"; (5) "Jose, Sensitive and Mercurial"; (6) "Willie, Between Shy and Talkative"; (7) "Lonnie, Class Clown"; (8) "Mike, Small-Town Boy"; (9) "Crystal, A Gifted Dropout"; (10) "Danny, A Deaf Student At Risk"; and (11) "David, A Sometimer." Each chapter describes how risk manifests itself in a child's life and mind. Each child is different. Each story is set against a different landscape with a different home situation and different societal pressures and demands. However, many of the problems the children faced are the same, as are many of their solutions. Most of the children learned about failing from an early age. These stories provide shocking examples of the lack of coordinated services for children at risk within our society and data about how children can be helped to overcome their problems and eventually become productive members of their communities.
Focusing on failure experiences, two studies explored the attributions of self-blame and responsibility and the motivational patterns of avoidance and increased diligence in elementary and middle school students. In the first study, 298 third through sixth grade students and 396 sixth through eighth grade students completed a self-report questionnaire to describe their attributions, motivations, and feelings following scholastic failure and misbehavior. As part of the questionnaire, students performed sentence-completion tasks and then selected their affective response to scholastic failure and misconduct from the following affects: worried, depressed, ashamed, frustrated, mad at themselves, sad, mad at someone else, and shamed by someone else. In the second study, which used a simplified version of the original questionnaire, students were assigned to an attribution and motivation group based on their response to one question. Analysis revealed that students making self-blame attributions reported lower levels of self-worth, perceived scholastic competence, and hopefulness , and greater worry about school than subjects making responsibility attributions. Students with avoidant motivational orientations reported lower ratings of the importance of academic success, scholastic competence, and hopefulness and reported greater conditionality of their fathers' support than subjects who endorsed effortful motivational orientations. Similar patterns for attributions and motivations regarding behavioral conduct were found.
Kindergarten children (n=161) screened with the "Early Prevention of School Failure" (EPSF) measure were examined several years later. Students who had been retained, referred to special education, or placed in special education demonstrated significantly lower EPSF scores. The fine motor and auditory modalities were the most powerful predictors of students' later status.
Describes how one teacher helped students in her third grade class, who had below average spelling and reading skills, improve their reading achievement by using a structured, graded, multifaceted approach to spelling instruction.
Offers views on the reading-spelling relationship by two spelling researchers, Jerry Zutell and J. Richard Gentry. Points out that all research supports some degree of formal word study.