July/August 1999
Johnny Still Can't Read?
By Peggy J. Farber
Results of the 1998 National Assessment of Educational Progress in reading show that U.S. high school students aren't developing the skills they need: only 6 percent of American 17-year-olds read at an advanced level. Yet few high schools today have reading support staff to instruct students in advanced reading processes, leaving many teachers to try to fill in those gaps while teaching course content. This article examines efforts to address adolescent literacy, such as a mandatory literacy course for incoming 9th-graders at a San Francisco high school, and other examples.
Buy this issue.
What Secondary Teachers Can Do To Teach Reading
By Vicki A. Jacobs
Jacobs, a Harvard specialist in literacy instruction, lays out a three-step program teachers can use to help secondary students with their reading.
Buy this issue.
"Nothing Makes a Kid Feel Better than Learning"
By Peggy J. Farber
At the Boys Town home and school for troubled youth, reading specialist Mary Curtis has developed a secondary school reading curriculum that is showing significant promise for adolescents struggling with basic reading processes. Many of her students arrive with reading skills that are two to six years below grade level. In Curtis's class, they gain about two years for every year of instruction. Peggy Farber describes the Boys Town Reading Curriculum, now being used in 30 different school systems.
Buy this issue.
Segregation: Stepping Back in Time?
By David T. Gordon
Forty-five years after Brown v. Board of Education, U.S. public education is again becoming segregated, this time by both race and class, according to a new report by Harvard's Civil Rights Project.
Buy this issue.
The "Brain-Based" Ballyhoo
New research on the brain may shed light on how kids learn, but should it change the way they're taught? The debate simmers...
by Millicent Lawton
This article highlights the current tug-of-war over so-called "brain-based education," a pedagogical bandwagon set in motion by recent advances in brain science and the media hype surrounding them. Proponents-by and large consultants, not brain scientists-argue that research about the brain can help K-12 educators know what and how to teach. But critics, mostly in the scientific community, question the accuracy of some of the movement's claims and argue that the "breakthroughs" it touts are little more than longstanding educational philosophy and common sense repackaged under a new, faddish name. As in many debates, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.
Buy this issue.
Breakfast for the Brain
by Millicent Lawton
What's best for breakfast? Pancakes? Cereal? A big plate of spaghetti? Brain research may help us decide. New research by psychologist Paul Gold of Binghamton (NY) University looks at the effect of glucose, or sugar, on the brain. His conclusion: consuming glucose can enhance cognitive functions, including learning and memory.
Buy this issue.
|
