READING ALOUD TO STUDENTS: A NATIONAL PROBABILITY STUDY OF CLASSROOM READING PRACTICES OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHERS

Elementary teachers have been encouraged to share literature with their students by reading to them daily and recommending books. Although such suggestions are common, little is known about the number of teachers who read to their students regularly and how often this practice occurs across the elementary grades. In this study, 1,874 elementary teachers were surveyed nationally to determine how often they read to their students. Teachers reported how many of the last ten school days they read to their students. Results include the finding that much more teacher reading of books to students occurs in the primary grades compared with the intermediate grades. Also, primary-grade teachers frequently read picture books to their students while intermediate grade teachers read chapter books most often. Informational books are not often read by teachers to students in any of the elementary grades. Discussion of the results centers around reading aloud in the primary and intermediate grades, picture and chapter-book reading, informational book reading, and introducing and recommending books.     

SELF-PERCEPTION IN WRITING: THE EFFECTS OF WRITING WORKSHOP AND TRADITIONAL INSTRUCTION ON INTERMEDIATE GRADE STUDENTS

This study compared the self-perception - specifically in terms of writing - of fourth- and fifth-grade students whose teachers used a writingworkshop approach with those whose teachers used a traditional approach. The measure used was the Writer Self-Perception Scale (Bottomley, Henk, & Melnick, 1997/1998). No significant differences were found between the scores of students who had been taught by the two teaching approaches. The findings of this study suggest that individual teachers are more important than strategies or approaches in affecting the writer self-perception of intermediate-grade children.     

Affective responses to non-sexual imagery depicting gay men and lesbian women

ABSTRACT

When examining negative attitudes and behaviors directed toward gay men and lesbian women (i.e., homonegativity), researchers tend to use measures that require participants to respond to belief statements. This methodology is problematic for two reasons: 1) it focuses on the social categories “gay men” and “lesbian women” and ignores the practices of relational intimacy engaged in by gay and lesbian persons (practices that, arguably, are at the crux of homonegativity); and 2) it overlooks the affective responses that sexual minorities evoke in heterosexual people. These issues were tackled in the current study. Specifically, heterosexual participants (N = 241) were asked to report their affective state using six basic emotions while viewing photos depicting male-male, female-female, and heterosexual couples. Findings demonstrated that participants, regardless of gender, reacted most negatively to images of female-female couples engaging in everyday intimacies. Theoretical explanations for these findings are explored.