Along Came Greedy Cat: Exploring the “Ready to Read” instructional reading series 1963-1988 as New Zealand children’s literature

<p>Ready to Read is a graded instructional reading series that has been provided free-of-charge since 1963 by the New Zealand government for students in the first three years of school. It has therefore been a key part of the reading experiences of New Zealand children for over fifty years. There is a commonly held belief that there is a distinction between instructional reading materials (the materials that are used to help children learn to read) and children’s literature – that the manipulation of text involved in developing instructional materials necessarily detracts from their literary appeal. The Ready to Read instructional reading series, however, was developed with the dual aims of helping children learn to read and want to read. The series also reflects the vision of the Department of Education of “New Zealand materials for New Zealand students.” The Ready to Read materials were (and are) written and illustrated by New Zealanders, and trialled in New Zealand schools before publication, meaning that teachers and children have input into the materials. The materials include contributions by some of New Zealand’s leading writers for children, including Margaret Mahy and Joy Cowley. They have a unique status in the history of New Zealand children’s books as being among the first picture books for young New Zealand readers, and the very first that acknowledged Māori children as part of the reading audience. Moreover, as a “home-grown” reading series, seeking to reflect the interests and experiences of New Zealand children, the materials provide a unique insight into New Zealand society and changes in social attitudes, in particular the emergence of biculturalism. While there is a significant body of research into the New Zealand School Journal, little attention has been paid to the Ready to Read materials (which are for younger readers). Price (2004) has written a short history of the early years of the Ready to Read series and McLachlan (1996) has investigated the visual representation of Māori in Ready to Read and the School Journal. This research seeks to fill this significant gap. This thesis explores how and why the series developed as it did from 1963-1988. It investigates the cultural and educational contexts, the literary aspects of the materials, and the beliefs about children as readers that underpinned its development. The “home-grown” nature of the Ready to Read materials, their literary qualities, their depiction of children’s lives, and the place of the series in the early reading experiences of New Zealand children make it indisputably a significant aspect of New Zealand children’s literature. It is hoped that this examination of the first twenty-five years of the Ready to Read series will be of interest to a wide audience, including educators, publishers, and researchers, and that it may serve as a starting point for further investigation. While this research is of immediate significance to a New Zealand audience, it also has international relevance in its description of an approach to the development of meaningful, engaging instructional texts for beginning readers that is unparalleled in the world.</p>

Along Came Greedy Cat: Exploring the “Ready to Read” instructional reading series 1963-1988 as New Zealand children’s literature

<p>Ready to Read is a graded instructional reading series that has been provided free-of-charge since 1963 by the New Zealand government for students in the first three years of school. It has therefore been a key part of the reading experiences of New Zealand children for over fifty years. There is a commonly held belief that there is a distinction between instructional reading materials (the materials that are used to help children learn to read) and children’s literature – that the manipulation of text involved in developing instructional materials necessarily detracts from their literary appeal. The Ready to Read instructional reading series, however, was developed with the dual aims of helping children learn to read and want to read. The series also reflects the vision of the Department of Education of “New Zealand materials for New Zealand students.” The Ready to Read materials were (and are) written and illustrated by New Zealanders, and trialled in New Zealand schools before publication, meaning that teachers and children have input into the materials. The materials include contributions by some of New Zealand’s leading writers for children, including Margaret Mahy and Joy Cowley. They have a unique status in the history of New Zealand children’s books as being among the first picture books for young New Zealand readers, and the very first that acknowledged Māori children as part of the reading audience. Moreover, as a “home-grown” reading series, seeking to reflect the interests and experiences of New Zealand children, the materials provide a unique insight into New Zealand society and changes in social attitudes, in particular the emergence of biculturalism. While there is a significant body of research into the New Zealand School Journal, little attention has been paid to the Ready to Read materials (which are for younger readers). Price (2004) has written a short history of the early years of the Ready to Read series and McLachlan (1996) has investigated the visual representation of Māori in Ready to Read and the School Journal. This research seeks to fill this significant gap. This thesis explores how and why the series developed as it did from 1963-1988. It investigates the cultural and educational contexts, the literary aspects of the materials, and the beliefs about children as readers that underpinned its development. The “home-grown” nature of the Ready to Read materials, their literary qualities, their depiction of children’s lives, and the place of the series in the early reading experiences of New Zealand children make it indisputably a significant aspect of New Zealand children’s literature. It is hoped that this examination of the first twenty-five years of the Ready to Read series will be of interest to a wide audience, including educators, publishers, and researchers, and that it may serve as a starting point for further investigation. While this research is of immediate significance to a New Zealand audience, it also has international relevance in its description of an approach to the development of meaningful, engaging instructional texts for beginning readers that is unparalleled in the world.</p>

Successful Instructional Reading Practices for African American Male Third-Grade Students

African American male third graders in U.S Title I schools frequently fail to read on grade level. However, in three Title I schools in East Texas, this demographic demonstrated exceptionally high reading ability. This explanatory case study investigated the instructional strategies and practices linked to high reading achievement for these students. The study is grounded in Ladson-Billings’s theory of culturally relevant pedagogy and supported by Vygotsky’s theory of social and cognitive constructivism. The research questions were used to examine the instructional strategies and practices used on each campus that may have resulted in such high reading achievement. This study engenders a deeper understanding of effective instructional reading strategies and practices for African American boys at the elementary level.

Integrating Islamic Values into ESP Reading Material

This present research is aiming at developing suitable instructional reading material for the students of Islamic Education Department. The procedure employed in this study was R&D model proposed by Dick and Carey, namely, need analysis, developing reading materials, expert validation, revising the materials, trying out the materials, and revising the materials. The result shows that reading materials must be developed by incorporating major content subject, namely Islamic studies, list of vocabulary, grammar review, and reading comprehension exercises. Furthermore, after being tried-out, it shows the applicability of the developed materials in helping the students to accomplish the mastery of reading skills and improve their learning motivation. In spite of the strength of the material developed, it is still tried-out in the small scale; therefore, the materials were still possible to be revised.

APPLICATION OF THE READING COMPREHENSIVE STRATEGIES IN THE FIRST PRIMARY DEVELOPMENT CYCLE

As a process that evolves and develops throughout life, literacy is the basic skill with which it begins and on which all formal education depends. The "instrument" in question represents academic ability which excludes only the recognition and decoding of letters. Reading, i.e. reading comprehension in contemporary pedagogical literature is explained as a progressive analytical-synthetic process that incorporates the components of literal recognition as a code, their relation, to the understanding of the meaning, namely the transaction that appears in the middle of the text and readers.Supported by proven pedagogical practice and various researches in this field, it has been found that readers' change in metacognitive and strategic readers is achieved through the use of reading strategies. These conscious and unparalleled plans without which reading comprehension cannot achieve its objectives are explained as intentional ways with the opportunity for a metacognitive reader to apply appropriate strategies as conscious actions.Given the fact that reading comprehension strategies and instructional reading lie in complementary relationships, the aim of this research is to study the level of application of reading comprehension strategies, as well as application efficiency and quality enhancement learning when applying the strategies in question.In order to move within the overall framework of this research, which bases the analysis of the size and efficiency of the application of reading comprehension strategies, the research refers to the comparative data of two groups of students, respectively 180 students divided as experimental group ( 90 pupils) and controller (90 students). In addition to the data we possess from participatory research, we will use statistic methods to analyze the differences between the experimental group and the control to analyze the differences between the two groups above. In order to answer the questions on which the study is led, as relevant data, we also use the answers obtained from the questionnaires with assessment scale of 23 teachers.In addition to helping to support the hypotheses raised, the obtained results also reflect the implications of the findings and the submission of other scientific questions that address this problematic. Sublimated results provide elaborated and justified suggestions.

Reading Comprehension and Self-Perceived School Performance in Elementary School

Abstratct This research aimed to investigate the reading comprehension and possible associations with self-perception of academic performance in elementary and middle school students. The study included 298 students enrolled from the 2nd to 9th grades in public schools the states of São Paulo and Parana. Two Cloze tests were collectively applied: one specific for elementary school (first stage of basic education) and another for the middle school (second stage). Results indicated that the students presented an instructional reading comprehension. It was also possible to observe statistically significant differences between Cloze score and self-perception of academic performance. In general, it can be stated that the students who presented better levels of reading comprehension are also the ones that better self-assessed. The data are discussed considering the psychoeducational implications concerning the mode of education investigated.

Critical Literacy Based Instructional Reading Materials

ABSTRACT The study aims at developing and producing a set of instructional materials used as a model of teaching/learning materials of critical reading. The model is developed through stages and procedures of research and development methods. The results of the study show that; a) the existing instructional materials in certain extent referring to students’ and lecturers incompatibility requires variation in terms of new reading approach, skills to be trained, and types of activities; b) the type of critical reading to be developed is critical literacy; c) the models resulted from the study are theoretically and practically eligible and feasible in accordance to a panel of expert judgement; d) the models are empirically proven effective to improve student's skills in reading critically; e) the final models comprise of students learning materials, teachers guidance/manual, and some supporting materials.

Utilizing the QRI as a Diagnostic Assessment and Intervention Instruction: A Case of a Thai Learner

The present exploration aimed to assess a reading level of a young Thai student by using the Qualitative Reading Inventory (QRI), and to plan reading intervention instruction targeted on the identified needs based on the assessment results. In this study, a single case study approach was employed. A seven-year old Thai learner was the focal participant. The research questions are threefold as follows: (1) What was the student’s diagnostic assessment result measured by the Qualitative Reading Inventory?, (2) Did the designed QRI-based reading intervention instruction lead to student’s literacy growth?, and (3) What was the student’ attitude towards the self as a reader, reading, and school before the diagnostic assessment took place, and after the reading intervention? The research instruments used in this study included the QRI tests, semi-structured interviews and observations. The diagnostic assessment results revealed that the student’s instructional reading level was at the pre-primer, and the QRI-based intervention instruction proved to assist the student in literacy growth. Moreover, the results from the interviews and observations showed that the student had a better attitude towards reading.