Examples of the awareness of young children of printed information they have gained informally are used to demonstrate some of the important knowledge that children bring to beginning reading and writing. Teachers need to encourage exploratory reading and writing experiences. (Author/DB)

Describes a bilingual open classroom program for kindergarten children in which the classroom environment is rich with printed language and children are introduced to reading by an individualized system they both enjoy and profit from. Tells how children "write" books, how phonics is introduced, and how reading is incorporated in a variety of…

Explores the nature of illiteracy for adults who have made no or minimal progress in learning to read or write. Finds further support for using the whole language approach and the language experience approach for adult beginning readers. (RS)

As part of a study that sought ways to improve the language arts educational experience for Grenadian children, an anthropologist investigated how Carriacou Creole English (CCE) reading materials could be provided and how these children would react to them. CCE is the native language of the inhabitants of Carriacou, a sister island of Grenada. The…

Using student dictated stories to create class books is an exciting way to teach young children about books and writing. Children can thus use their own material as they learn to read, the books provide a class library, and writing through dictation allows young children to learn about reading and writing before they can read or write--even with…

A review of the research stresses the importance of language skills to beginning reading. (JH)

Thirty-three first grade classrooms in Georgia were observed to determine the state of language experience instruction and to examine whether such instruction makes a difference in students' awareness of the reading purpose, their knowledge of instructional terminology, their reading attitudes, and their reading achievement. The Allen Level of…

This program, included in "Effective Reading Programs...," serves 879 first- and second-graders, plus one fourth-grade class. The students are predominantly middle-class whites living in a small city. The program is an initial reading program designed to complement any basal reading series. The instructional strategy is based on the…

This study investigated the effect on the reading comprehension of preschool children of matching syntactic patterns in written materials to patterns in their level of language acquisition. It also examined whether a language experience method or a prescribed vocabulary method had different effects on the results. Eighty randomly selected subjects…

Discusses the relationship of cognitive development or thinking skills to language development and beginning reading. (MKM)

Describes a reading program for disadvantaged students that utilizes the child's background and experiences and language in beginning reading instruction. (TO)

Examines the relative merits of the language experience approach, the basal reader approach, and the individualized reading approach for beginning reading instruction, concluding that individualized reading has the advantage of fitting the needs of the student. (RB)

Article describes a new approach to the instruction of beginning reading. It is followed by a review of books and articles to aid in using this new approach. (MR)

Argues that the language experience approach to the teaching of beginning reading not only makes use of the valuable resource of children's speaking, but also cultivates their metalinguistic ability and eases their transition between two very different forms of language. (FL)