The relationship between written words and their pronunciation varies considerably among different orthographic systems, and these variations have repercussions on learning to read. Children whose languages have deep orthographies must learn to pronounce larger units, such as rhymes, morphemes, or whole words, to achieve the correct pronunciation…

Argues that there is a developmental relationship between children's performances in reading and writing tasks and describes two diagnostic tasks that teachers can use to assess young children's developing concepts of words in reading and in writing, without interfering with the natural processes of learning to read and write. (HTH)

The dimensions that interact during reading acquisition include properties of texts, the acquisition of reading skills and strategies, the development of cognitive and language skills, the influence of instruction, and the effects of motivational, cultural, and language variables. Discusses how these interactions may occur and describes three…

Ninety kindergarten, first-grade, and second-grade students participated in this study of ability to segment oral language into words and word units. Each child completed two individually administered oral segmentation tests and the Metropolitan Achievement Test. Results indicated that the ability to segment orally presented sentences developed…

Reviews research pertaining to metalinguistic awareness in young children; examines issues related to the direction of cause between metalinguistic abilities and reading, disparities in research methodology between studies, and commercial instruments perporting to measure metalinguistic knowledge; and offers implications for reading instruction…

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…

Research findings concerned with the relationship between the child's oral language behavior and learning to read are described. A cognitive-biological approach to the child's perceptual system development is taken, and data are presented to support both the developmental point of view of language development and the point of view that the child…

An explanation of the child's mind and his language, stated in terms of the nature of the learner, is presented in this book. The authors ask teachers to think about the competence of the child and try to discover what he must know to be able to read. They ask teachers to examine the nature of the learner--what he knows that enables him to learn…

Investigates the process involved in acquiring word knowledge from written context in prereading kindergarten children. Analyzes children's readings of picture books to identify patterns of vocabulary growth. Concludes that children learned lexicogrammatical information incidentally through exposure to written context. (MM)

TO TEST THE ASSUMPTION THAT THE READING PROCESS IS A NATURAL EMERGENCE OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT, A HYPOTHETICAL STRUCTURE WAS DEVISED TO RECAPITULATE THE PROCESS THAT IT IS ASSUMED THE CHILD GOES THROUGH. EACH OF 25 PRINTED WORD SYMBOLS WAS PRESENTED IN THE FOLLOWING ORDER--(1) A PHOTOGRAPH OF THE SYMBOL IN ITS NATURAL SETTING, (2) A DRAWING OF THE…

The primary focus of this paper is on black children and the relationship between their productive and receptive language competencies. The solutions which have been proposed to solve the dilemma of black pupils' poor reading achievement are discussed. It is noted that none of the proposed solutions has the unqualified support provided by a mass…

The rich oral language experiences given children in Russian preschools and primary schools accounts for their subsequent success in reading. (JH)

Providing information about the interrelationships among learning, teaching, and the act of reading, this book serves as a guide for gaining an understanding of the psychological bases of the reading process. The 11 chapters discuss the following topics: (1) language and intellectual development during the formative years; (2) the aspects of child…

A comparison of two models of the reading process--the psycholinguistic model, in which learning to read is seen as a top-down, holistic procedure, and the traditional theory model, in which learning to read is seen as a bottom-up, atomistic procedure--is provided in this paper. The first part of the paper provides brief overviews of the following…