Learning irregular words involves mental marking of irregular letters in the spelling, a process not fully understood. In a within-subjects experiment, we manipulated the type of scaffolding given to beginning readers to evoke mental marking. We pretested to sort 103 kindergarten and first-grade participants into sequential decoders, who decode…

While there is consensus that self-corrections (SCs) ought to be coded as part of oral reading assessments, less agreement exists as to what, if any, role self-correcting plays in reading development. The purpose of this study was to address limitations of prior research and provide a more statistically accurate estimate of the role of SC in early…

Many South African children struggle in acquiring literacy and reading skills. It seems as if caregivers may be missing an important aspect in guiding children's emergent reading development. The question is whether there are underlying concepts needed for emergent literacy and the acquisition of reading skills. The nature of the reading process…

This 2-year longitudinal study examined both concurrent and longitudinal relations of a variety of reading-related cognitive tasks and Chinese word reading and word dictation among 187 Hong Kong Chinese kindergarteners aged 4-6. Homophone awareness, visual skills and syllable awareness were all uniquely associated with Chinese word reading across…

This paper contends that there is a range of converging evidence that beginning readers use the implicit lexicalized form of phonological recoding, as claimed by the knowledge sources theory. To reinforce the contention, the paper first discusses the alphabetic principle and theories of beginning reading and then considers lexicalized phonological…

Investigates the kind of print-related knowledge that emergent readers must possess to learn to point to the words of a text as they recite it from memory (fingerpoint-reading) and to remember information about the print from this activity. Reveals that different types of print knowledge facilitate different aspects of fingerpoint-reading. (SR)

Emerging literacy is a developmental process which is closely tied to the child's developing cognitive processes. The interaction of memory and emerging literacy can be discussed in the context of Marie Clay's Reading Recovery model. Memory types, encoding and retrieval, strategy use, and executive control/expectancies are components of cognitive…

Analyzes and compares the types and frequencies of background knowledge children use during independent emergent readings, and those children and teachers use in group-shared reading experiences that precede emergent readings. Uses this information to provide evidence for a model of reading as an activity constrained by contextual factors such as…

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…

To describe the process by which young children accomplish individual emergent readings, it is necessary to move beyond holistic assessments and into micro-analysis. An extension of an existing emergent reading scale to the level of the t-unit (as applied to a transcription of a five-year-old Head Start child's dialogue with an adult) revealed:…

Examines material imported into emergent readings--material that is not contained in the original written text of a book--as evidence of the types of information emergent readers use. Pinpoints four sources of nontext importations in the emergent readings: material from illustrations, from prior read-aloud sessions, from personal experience and…

Investigates whether the prelexical phonological route develops prior to the visual route while learning to read Greek. Finds reading accuracy unaffected by the main psycholinguistic properties of words; chronological age did not influence long-term reading acquisition; and beginning readers used phonological information in reading but started to…

Discusses how all children must learn to work to overcome a difficulty, take initiative, and make links with what they already know. Illustrates these actions with instructional interactions in kindergarten and first-grade classrooms. Notes how teachers can establish a pattern of expectations. Outlines ways teachers can foster active learning, and…

In attempts to understand the process of literacy acquisition, many researchers have devised models of reading. The basic elements of most reading acquisition models include word, or print knowledge and comprehension. The inadequacy and global nature of the conversational model of language proficiency provide impetus for C.E. Snow's development of…

Designed for the grades K-2 literature-based classroom, this reading assessment kit includes 6 books which represent the stages most developing readers pass through as they move from being emergent to fluent readers. The kit also contains reading ladder assessment tools and reproducible charts and checklists. The literature selections in the kit…