This study examined implementation of a newly developed shared book reading intervention program, to boost infants' early skills and provide a solid foundation for continued language learning. A randomised control study was conducted to elevate the effects of Shared Book Reading Intervention with 20 parents (n = 10 experiment, n = 10 control) and…

The aim of the study was to examine the profiles of children with a family history (FH+) of language-learning impairments (LLI) and a control group of children with no reported family history of LLI (FH-) and identify which language constructs (receptive or expressive) and which ages (2 or 3 years) are related to expressive and receptive language…

Twenty-four good beginning readers and 24 poor readers from 12 suburban first grades were tested on three measures of grammatical morpheme use: sentence recall, speech production, and language compehension. The two groups did not differ in sentence recall. Good readers produced more correct grammatical morphemes than poor readers, but the…

This paper explains the creation and validation of the Narrative Comprehension of Picture Books task (NC task), an assessment of young children's comprehension of wordless picture books. Study 1 explored developmental improvements in the task, as well as relationships to other measures of early reading. Subjects, 158 K-2 students, were…

Explains the creation and validation of the Narrative Comprehension of Picture Books task (NC task), an assessment of young children's comprehension of wordless picture books. Creates and tests assessment materials and procedures that can be used with young children, whether or not they can decode print. Discusses how narrative comprehension is…

This study examined the impact of environmental print over a 4-year period with 28 children (initially ages 3 and 4), all with severe to profound hearing losses. A four-phase environmental print task was administered annually for four years. Results are interpreted in terms of recognition and interpretation, constructing meaning from print, and…

Research findings concerned with the relationship between the child's oral language behavior and learning to read are described. A cognitive-biological approach to the child's perceptual system development is taken, and data are presented to support both the developmental point of view of language development and the point of view that the child…

Examines preschool children's understanding of the reading process. Results indicate that children's immediate experiences and their developmental characteristics had an impact on their conception of reading. (Author/AS)

Research reported in this paper is part of a more general investigation into the speech, reading and writing of 5- to 7-year olds. It is designed to trace children's comprehension of instructional terms and their abilities to identify units in written and spoken language while they learn to read. (Author/CB)

In an exploration of the comprehension process of the beginning reader, 16 first and second grade students were each asked to listen to two stories--one a narrative account and the other an expository passage-- and then immediately to retell them. Recall protocols were compared by propositional analysis for text-related superordinate and…

Reports results of four experiments testing whether syllable structure affects children's performance in phonemic analysis tasks and in other reading related tasks. The experiments were motivated by theories that syllables consist of an onset (initial consonant or consonant cluster) and a rime (vowel and any following consonants). (AS/Author)

Explains six tasks which require comprehension of words and which can be used to teach beginning readers. (MKM)

This article is based on the presidential address I delivered at the 12th annual meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, held in June 2005 in Toronto. I trace the development of my interest in instructional research in, first, beginning reading and, more recently, in comprehension, and I describe studies designed to improve the…

Examines interactions between 48 mothers and their two- , three-and-a-half-, and five-year-old children during book reading sessions. Formal reading and interchange about story content increased with age and book familiarity, while labelling decreased with age and book familiarity. (RJC)