Offers guidelines for helping children produce their own alphabet books. (FL)

Discusses the language experience approach (LEA) to teaching reading and offers suggestions for six types of LEA stories: student selected, class shared, shape, patterned, written dialogue, and directed language teaching. (FL)

Designed to help students learn to read by teaching them how to "listen to language," this resource book presents over 90 interactive activities, reproducible manipulatives, picture cards, and word lists to help children connect oral language to written text. It also includes a complete program review with important facts about phonemic…

Reviews four current approaches to play behavior of young children and concludes that using forms of play such as puppets and body action movements to rehearse story content is effective in aiding aural language comprehension and recall in young children. (FL)

The final report documents goals and achievements of Project CUE, a 3 year project to assist teachers of language impaired children to adapt regular reading readiness curricula to the students' needs. Objectives are listed, including conducting a needs assessment, selecting a basal reading series, and disseminating information on the project, and…

Contributors discuss ways to introduce and motivate: (1) beginning reading, (2) repeated readings in the remedial classroom, (3) vision and cognitive style, (4) guidelines for a reading aloud program, and (5) good beginnings for potential reading teachers. (FL)

Discusses emergent literacy development, which includes meaningful literacy-related activities involving oral language, reading, and writing. Offers suggestions for fostering children's development in each area, such as the use of picture books and puppets for vocabulary development; reading aloud and discussing children's literature; and…

Reflecting the work of Yetta Goodman on child language development, this paper examines Goodman's five "roots of literacy" and offers suggestions on classroom techniques for nurturing these roots. The first half of the paper explains how Goodman identified the roots of literacy and describes each of them, including (1) print awareness in…

This preschool activity book and kindergarten activity book set provide a curriculum of 114 activities to develop emergent literacy skills in preschool and kindergarten children. The curriculum is based on research findings and is intended to be ecologically valid, embedding activities into developmentally appropriate, daily classroom routines and…

The book summarizes the current state of knowledge concerning language development in children with Down Syndrome (DS). The first chapter reviews language development in normal children, noting such stages as gestures, first sounds, development of understanding, first spoken words, and the two-word stage. The next chapter examines language skills…

Seven reading readiness skills essential for young children's language development are presented in this curriculum guide. Following an introductory overview of the curriculum and its philosophy (including the aims, rationale, and objectives), the seven reading readiness skills are described. These skills are (1) auditory discrimination of sounds…

Promotion of literacy is one of the easiest and most beneficial ways to form collaboration among parents, teachers, and community. This article offers ideas from teachers, professional organizations, and the U.S. Department of Education on how to develop parent participation in the promotion of literacy at children's various levels of development.…

Designed to assist the parent in providing language learning opportunities to children at home from infancy through first grade, this practically oriented guidebook includes activities for early childhood to develop sensory awareness and to encourage directed play, investigation, and exploration. Exercises are designed to develop physical…

Noting that children's experiences at home during the preschool years set the stage for reading success, this guide provides the initiative, principles, and activities for reading to children from early months to 7 years to improve their literacy acquisition. The nine chapters are as follows: (1) "Reading: An Overview of the Discovery…

The primary goal of this practicum was to provide opportunities for rich and diverse language activities designed to enhance the kindergarten curriculum. New instructional guidelines were designed that encouraged daily classroom time devoted to language development activities. These activities replaced all formal isolated skill instruction.…