In order to document the self-directed, spontaneous growth in literary output of a six-year-old child, her writings during a one month period were collected and compiled. It was discovered that the child used writing to organize knowledge about the environment and the operations of print, to maintain personal relations, to establish impersonal or…

Focusing on the development of literacy, this book discusses the teaching of reading and writing through stories, songs, and poetry. It is argued that, to develop literacy, teachers must know what to teach, how to Teach efficiently, and how to assign practices through which children learn. The book is organized into three general parts. The first…

This report gives a history of the 1979-80 segment of a continuing project that is designed to provide a theoretically based description of children's transition from prereading to reading, along with tools that teachers may use to assess children's emerging literacy abilities. The first chapter provides an introduction to the project, while the…