Examines how Hispanic bilingual kindergartners and first graders create and express personal meanings by illustrating parts of stories read aloud in class, dictating responses, and writing original narratives. Notes that literacy activities should be tied authentically to questions and interests expressed by children in the classroom. (MM)

Previous studies on emergent literacy have shown that since young children learn a lot about writing and reading before they attend school, teachers can build on this knowledge in an integrated instructional program. But just how reading and writing are intertwined in the learning process has not been clearly defined. This study investigated the…

The difficulties children face as they are learning to read is the focus of this book, which is a collection of children's work (drawings and handwriting), with statements exploring their implications. The introduction discusses the relationship between early writing and early reading, individual differences, the question of age norms, questions…