The Dynamics of Language Learning: Research in Reading and English

Sandra Stotsky, James R. Squire
1988 College composition and communication  
REPORT NO ISBN-0-8141-1276-5 PUB DATE 87 CONTRACT 400-86-0045 NOTE 420p.; Papers commissioned for the Mid-Decade Seminar on the Teaching of Reading and English (Chicago, IL, March 29-31, 1985). For the seminar's discussions of these papers, see ED 274 967. 1 2 hope, of course, to influence the publishers of instructional materials. the serious teaching to the test that goes on in Minneapolis classrooms today. There is nothing wrong with that, of course, if the tests really test the important
more » ... ngs to be learned. How often does that happen? 2. I went to a one-room school through eighth grade. We had countywide examinations, the purpose of which I am not quite sure. What I do recall is that it was a real feather in a teacher's cap to have his or her eighth-grade pupils score at or near the top of this list. At any rate, the other eighth-grdde students and I spent every afternoon of the last two months of the school year in the entryway asking each other questions from every standardized achievement test that the teachers could get their hands on. I have no doubt that every other entry to every other one-room school was similarly occupied by eighth graders hot in pursuit of the knowledge embedded in standardized tests. These illustrations raise the kinds of issues that must be considered, and in the organization of this conference, Jim Squire has done a marvelous job of addressing these and other issues, pulling together a seminar focusing on a broad spectrum of similar issues spanning research in basic processes, classroom practice, materials, technology, and assessment.
doi:10.2307/357831 fatcat:oocc3rm2z5d4nepadsrbxgb6vq