Describes how using a flashlight to read language experience chart stories can provide a concrete way to build a foundation for many emergent reader concepts, such as directionality. (SR)

The inclusion of talk, written language, and body language are critically important in primary classrooms. Although reading and writing may be regarded as cognitive activities, they are embedded in a social/cultural milieu, and the practice of mechanical decoding as a necessary precedent to real reading is not pedagogically sound. A whole class…

Arguing that reading and writing in school should be natural and enjoyable for children, this book is based on the Piagetian theory that knowledge is constructed by each individual and the psycholinguistic view that learning takes place best when viewed as holistic and when instructional materials for children are authentic and purposeful. The…

Undergraduate education students can often discuss the language experience approach intelligently, listing advantages and disadvantages with ease, but express bewilderment when it comes time in a reading practicum class to actually use the approach with a child. A teaching guide can serve as an aid to those students who have previously studied the…

A second grade teacher in a rural Appalachian school draws heavily on familiar regional literature and the children's own rich mountain heritage and culture to teach reading to her students, covering the required basal readings in only one day per week. Students use the basals on Mondays and retell the texts on paper. They spend the rest of the…

Suggests using daily journals to fuse language experience techniques with opportunities for independent writing more characteristic of an emergent literacy perspective. Explains that journals combine group dictation with independent writing to involve children in purposeful literacy activities. (MG)