The grapho-linguistic approach to teaching reading involves the labeling of self-initiated graphic images reinforced by the copying of the written labels, which helps the child to understand the transference of meaning from the object to its name to its written name. The best time to start labeling strategies is when the child draws recognizable…

The research literature suggests that the processes involved in language and cognitive development are similar in nature, especially during the early years. Both require some method for assimilation and accommodation of incoming stimuli, both appear to be continuous and hierarchical in nature, and both require the development and refinement of a…

This study reveals that children from the age of four to six years are unable to segment meaningful sentences into component words. The experiment investigated three hypotheses of performance on a word-learning task for beginning readers and prereaders. Readers and prereaders were taught five words as oral responses, each word paired with a…

Summarizes and updates original study done on reading and writing development of a preschool child. (SRT)

To ascertain whether paradigmatic performance on a word association test administered at the end of kindergarten is an effective predictor of reading achievement, 37 children were tested on the Syntagmatic-Paradigmatic Assessment (SPA) at the end of their kindergarten year. At the end of their first grade year, the children were administered a…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 25 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: reading achievement as it relates to child dependency, the development of phonological coding, short-term memory and associative learning, variables available in…