Metalinguistic cognition is the ability to think about language, to comment on it, to produce it, to comprehend it, and to manipulate language as an object with many identifiable and functional parts. It appears that metalinguistic skill development is related to cognitive development and is dependent on metalinguistic awareness which runs…

Illustrates a strategic-process perspective toward reading skill development, discusses cognitive research related to early reading processes, and relates the perspective to a variety of research on the early reading period (grades one to six). (JM)

Introduces the use of word sorts as a way of helping children categorize words in helpful ways. (TJ)

A study examined the developmental shifts in the importance of linguistic components of words to single word decoding. Subjects, 1200 children ages 6-7, 8-9, and 10-12.5 years who were the normative sample of the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (K-ABC), were tested using a word recognition test, the Reading Decoding Subtest of the K-ABC.…

Three unjustified assumptions are often made about young beginners in reading: they all are acquainted with books and reading, the children and the teacher are thinking in the same terms when each talks about reading, and children understand the technical terms of literacy. Reading authorities refer to this lack of understanding of what the…

Drawing from research on reading, this paper suggests various methods of stimulating cognition in beginning readers. Defining cognition as the process by which a person gains knowledge, or understands or comprehends, discussion in the paper centers on the following topics: (1) perceptive and cognitive skills; (2) prior experience; (3) knowledge of…

The purpose of this study was to examine the interrelationships among five measures of aided reading comprehension (reading to each subject while he silently reads or follows along), intelligence, and three measures of cognitive style variables in first grade children. Thirty-four first graders, 13 boys and 21 girls, served as subjects. It was…

The child approaching reading for the first time comes well-equipped with developmental tools to lighten the task. Linguistically speaking, in addition to some decoding skills, the child has a full-blown syntactic system consisting of the basic syntactic forms, though some of the more intricate forms will not be mastered until much later.…

Reports on a study that investigated the nature of the relationship between reading ability and performance on intelligence tests. Reveals a number of findings. (FL)

The extent to which cuing strategies and basic skills explanations of early reading constitute complementary approaches was examined in a study involving 94 fourth grade students. Basic skills--a unidimensional component based on measures of vocabulary development, language skills, and work-study skills--proved to be a powerful variable mediating…

This paper analyzes: (1) the task of learning to read, in the context of cognitive and linguistic tools a child has at his/her disposal; (2) how these tools change with further development and experience; and (3) how teachers can foster this development and growth. Eight research-based recommendations for classroom teaching are given. (PP)

This paper contains a report of a theoretical investigation of contextual analysis (CA) that ranked this reading strategy as the most complex of four kindred word recognition skills although many current reading programs advance its use in the beginning stages of formal reading instruction. Three propositions are offered: CA holds kinship with the…

Reports that readiness tests given to children in bilingual villages in Papua New Guinea showed that children learning to read in an unfamiliar language were more confused than were children who had never had literacy instruction. (FL)

Offers selected ERIC references on the application of Piagetian theory and the use of Piagetian tasks in beginning reading/language arts instruction. (RL)

Four studies used the theoretically based understanding of comprehension developed by W. Kintsch and T. A. van Dijk to look for processes that might undergo development as a child becomes more practiced and skilled in reading so that an understanding of these processes might become the basis for reading remediation programs. The first three…