Rehabilitation literature: a guide to selection materials

The rehabilitation of physically disabled persons is an expanding and interdisciplinary field, and the literature on this topic has grown rapidly in recent years. Bibliographic control of rehabilitation literature is poor, and selection of materials about physically disabled persons can be a difficult undertaking. The present article describes and evaluates various selection tools on the basis of their coverage of rehabilitation literature and their usefulness to academic, public, and special librarians.     

Tiers of intervention in kindergarten through third grade

This study measured the effects of increasing levels of intervention in reading for a cohort of children in Grades K through 3 to determine whether the severity of reading disability (RD) could be significantly reduced in the catchment schools. Tier 1 consisted of professional development for teachers of reading. The focus of this study is on additional instruction that was provided as early as kindergarten for children whose achievement fell below average. Tier 2 intervention consisted of small-group reading instruction 3 times per week, and Tier 3 of daily instruction delivered individually or in groups of two. A comparison of the reading achievement of third-grade children who were at risk in kindergarten showed moderate to large differences favoring children in the tiered interventions in decoding, word identification, fluency, and reading comprehension.     

What hysteria? A systematic study of newspaper coverage of accused child molesters

OBJECTIVE: There were three aims: First, to determine the extent to which those charged with child molestation receive newspaper coverage; second, to analyze the nature of that coverage; and third, to compare the universe of coverage to the nature of child molestation charges in the criminal justice system as a whole. METHOD: Two databases were created. The first one identified all defendants charged with child molestation in Rhode Island in 1993. The database was updated after 5 years to include relevant information about case disposition. The second database was created by electronic searching the Providence Journal for every story that mentioned each defendant. RESULTS: Most defendants (56.1%) were not mentioned in the newspaper. Factors associated with a greater chance of coverage include: cases involving first-degree charges, cases with multiple counts, cases involving additional violence or multiple victims, and cases resulting in long prison sentences. The data indicate that the press exaggerates "stranger danger," while intra-familial cases are underreported. Newspaper accounts also minimize the extent to which guilty defendants avoid prison. CONCLUSIONS: Generalizing about the nature of child molestation cases in criminal court on the basis of newspaper coverage is inappropriate. The coverage is less extensive than often claimed, and it is skewed in ways that are typical of the mass media.     

Teaching poetry: a descriptive case study of a poetry unit in a classroom of urban deaf adolescents

A qualitative study was conducted that reflected an analysis of a 6-week poetry unit in a language arts classroom of 6th and 8th graders at a school for the deaf in a large city in the northeastern United States. The school served a large population of children of poverty who were of Latino and African American descent. The study was guided by 4 research questions: (a) Would students benefit from having American Sign Language (ASL) poetry as a part of the unit? (b) Would teachers' signing of poems increase students' understanding of the poems? (c) Could students analyze the meaning of poems independently? (d) Would students view writing poetry as a vehicle for expressing their feelings and ideas through themes that were important to them? The evidence provided support for affirmative answers to questions a, b, and d.