The South Metropolitan Association Communication Development Program in Flossmoor, Illinois, developed a language-oriented program that improved reading and writing proficiency of students with communication disorders. The program involves development and reading of language experience stories, role playing, vocabulary development, and other…

Identifies literacy activities that can be used by volunteers to support classroom instruction. Provides a set of guidelines that teachers may give to the volunteers who work with students in need of additional educational opportunities if the students are to meet the challenge of becoming successful, independent readers. (RS)

Reading teachers and specialists have a difficult task in determining which components need to be emphasized in a quality reading program. Vital goals need to be achieved, experiences and activities must capture learner interest, and sequence in learning and organization of subject matter must guide student integration of knowledge. The scope of…

This study hypothesized that an intervention program that would develop students' language facility in lower elementary school might increase the students' likelihood of retention. An outgrowth of a family literacy project which focused on raising the literacy level of an Appalachian community, the study used the Language Experience Approach which…

The Language Experience Approach (LEA) to teaching reading in English as a second language is described. LEA uses the student's own experiences, vocabulary, and language patterns to create texts for reading instruction. Three stages are defined for assessing learners' levels of language use. The LEA instructional procedures are designed to be…

A study explored the effects of an expanded Language Experience Approach (LEA) on listening comprehension skills of kindergarteners. During a 2-year period, two exerpiments were conducted with different groups of kindergarteners. The second experiment replicated the first experiment and was conducted to determine if an expanded LEA would produce…

In accordance with current recommendations concerning teaching reading to kindergarten children, this paper presents a kindergarten reading curriculum. Included are a description of major instructional techniques, a time-line illustrating how instruction might evolve across the school year, and finally, a battery of informal tasks for assessing…

Research in psycholinguistics and learning theory is reviewed to support the integration of oral and written language skills, and the language experience approach (LEA) is recommended for secondary school second language instruction. This approach incorporates listening, speaking, reading, and writing in purposeful communication. Students use the…

Based on the theory that learning takes place if the learner is able to relate new knowledge to something already known, the course of study described in this booklet consists of recording stories dictated by individual students and using these stories as a basis for teaching reading and creative writing to students from preschool through adult…

Describes how one teacher uses sensory impressionsto stimulate talking, reading, and writing exercises in a first grade classroom. (TO)

In order to equalize educational opportunities, individualized instruction in the beginning reading program is suggested. Children should have equal opportunity but not identical instruction. Reading readiness, as determined by reading skills, and reading interest should determine when instruction begins, whether it is kindergarten or the third…

Reading instruction is on the verge of a shift to a new paradigm that will be based on a new understanding of cognitive processes and will include five important tenets: (1) the best way to promote the emergence of reading behavior is to use interesting story books; (2) the primary cause of reading problems is too much instruction, too much…

This final evaluation report of the Burrillville Reading Observes Necessary Communication Objectives and Skills (BRONCOS) project, a Right to Read program in Burrillville, Rhode Island, summarizes the results for each of the project's four general and ten specific objectives and describes the activities that have been carried out to accomplish…

The Story Maker is a teaching device that allows children to create stories by choosing options from a set of already-written story segments. This device (1) provides an active language experience that allows children to construct stories easily; (2) demonstrates the consequences of choosing different ways for a story to proceed; (3) avoids the…

Most content area teachers face a common problem--students who cannot read their textbooks or who do so with difficulty. Before they can provide help for such students, teachers must first try to understand the reasons why the students have reading problems and then they must find some way to teach subject content and reading at the same time.…