The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between television and recreational reading and to investigate one program, Kids & Books, as a model for television as a medium that can lead children to literature. Educators agree that it is important to nurture a love of reading in children and that recreational reading habits are affected by television viewing. This study discusses the development of one locally produced television program, Kids & Books, which attempts to promote recreational reading in children ages nine through twelve. After showing Kids & Books to fourth grade children a study was conducted to determine if this program motivated its viewers to read for pleasure. Students filled out questionnaires designed to help create a Reading and Television Profile for each child before and after the study. Over a six to eight week period the students viewed three segments of Kids & Books which featured particular authors and contained "Book Look," a segment created by children to motivate others to read. After each program the teachers facilitated audiotaped discussions using guidelines developed for this study. Data from the two questionnaires were compared and analyzed to see whether the students had been influenced by watching Kids & Books. The audiotaped discussions were selectively transcribed and were analyzed for more subjective information, particularly about the children's responses to their peers and to Patricia MacLachlan, the author who was interviewed. The study showed that the children did respond positively to Kids & Books. In many cases their reading attitudes showed improvement; reading categories increased; reasons for book selection expanded to include television. The children showed strong responses to authors who had been featured on the three Kids & Books programs, particularly MacLachlan. Suggestions for further study include analyzing the role that children play in motivating each other to read; determining how television programs like Kids & Books can be effective outside the classroom setting; and examining the impact that a televised interview with an author has upon children as readers and writers.

This study describes an experimental fifth grade reading class in which an interactive writing program replaced the traditional school model's follow-up activities of workbooks, skill worksheets or assigned comprehension questions. For the purpose of the case-study, the researcher made careful, systematic observations, collected samples of the students' work and kept detailed ethnographic notes for an entire year. The researcher hoped to learn about the complementary relationship between reading and writing and more specifically the effects of a writing-infused program on the reading comprehension ability of the students involved. The subjects of the study were a group of fourteen students selected from the middle of a class of sixty-one fifth graders. The median IQ for the entire fifth grade was 108, while it was 100 for the fourteen students participating in the study group. The IQ ranged from 93-117. In this dissertation can be found the results of the writer's exploration and her answers to five research questions. Did the students make observable improvements in their writing abilities and skills? Did the writing-infused students make gains in reading comprehension? How did the writing-infused students perform in tests measuring traditional language and reading achievement as compared to the other fifth grade students in the same school receiving traditional reading instruction as recommended by the teacher's manual for their basal reader? How useful did the writing-infused students feel the writing activities were to their reading and writing development? And lastly, how much interest and enjoyment did the students have in the interactive writing activities? The findings cited in this study support the researcher's belief that students can be taught a process of writing that will positively affect their general reading ability--specifically their reading comprehension. The performance of the reading-writing students compared favorably to the performance of the students in the traditional classrooms. The students found the writing instruction to be appealing, informative and instructive and as a result made great progress in their competencies.

In Southern New England as well as throughout the United States, middle school and high school aged language minority students are often found to be poor readers and writers of English despite their having received extensive English as a Second Language instruction in the primary grades. By and large, these are children who did not have the opportunity to fully develop literacy in their strongest language due to the school's policy that they be exposed to English as soon and as much as possible. Such a dilemma produces two negative possibilities to the secondary student which often contributes to a decision to drop out of school: the students' taking less demanding courses in which they do not wish to be enrolled, or the students' being enrolled in the program of their choice and finding the level of scholarship which is required to be overwhelming. This study measures the effects of varying degrees of native language literacy development on the mainland Portuguese immigrant child's later reading success in English as measured at the secondary school level. Specifically, it examines the impact of four to six years of participation in a community-operated, Portuguese language after-school program (in grades two through seven) on junior and senior high school English reading achievement as measured on the MAT6. The study also examines the relationship between participation in both this program and the primary grade (K-2) public school transitional bilingual education program in terms of later reading achievement in English. The results of the study indicate that a student's chances to be a good reader in English increased proportionally with the degree of development he/she had attained in literacy in the native language. The most successful group consisted of students who had been enrolled in both the bilingual education program and the after-school, Escola Portuguesa program. Conclusions. That public schools consider either providing late-exit bilingual education programs instead of early-exit programs currently in use, or that they work to help community groups to design and implement their own structured, after-school programs whereby native literacy can develop beyond the level which is provided in the early-exit, TBE model.

This study was a qualitative research study dedicated to the deep investigation of a regular and advanced seventh grade mathematics textbook used in Florida and the United Kingdom. A questionnaire was created for a teacher in both locations, along with the researcher, to rate the textbooks according to different characteristics. The two research questions that were answered through the research include: 1. In what ways, if any, is diversity represented in the pages of each seventh grade mathematics textbooks examined? a. In what ways is the diversity of each textbook comparable to the observed diversity of the country in which it is used? 2. How do the seventh grade mathematics textbooks in the United States and the United Kingdom compare with aspects of appearance, readability, illustrations, content, the teacher's guide/resources, and EL accommodations? These research questions were answered through the questionnaire, follow up interview, as well as the observed environment. The conclusion to the research was that although these textbooks are from two different countries, they have qualities each teacher liked and disliked. When I completed the questionnaire I was only able to rate the textbooks according to visual perspectives, while the teachers in each location were able to base their ratings on tangible classroom experiences. To further my research, I would enjoy being able to teach for a year in each location and then complete the questionnaire again to compare the differences between my first time completing it and the second time.

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