An organic approach to the teaching of reading emphasizes the selection of vocabulary from the experiential background of the child. (JH)

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…

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…

This paper discusses three types of writing experiences, "Writing Roulette,""The Even-Steven Swap Game," and "The Open-Ended Story with a Slant," that can be used in a writing workshop for disabled readers at the secondary level. Each activity emphasizes writing but provides motivation for students to read each other's work. Students will have…

The classroom use of the key vocabulary, developed by Sylvia Ashton-Warner as a reading approach--rather than as a reading method--which utilizes the child's actual experience, is the major concern of this book. Materials used and tested for a number of years present examples, outlines, and various methods for eliciting children's dramas through…

The study of psycholinguistics seems to enable English teachers to make their classes more effective and more enjoyable. (JH)

A turn-of-the-century printing press motivates elementary students to write. Children write, edit, and print their own stories on the Greenwood School Press. This self-supporting enterprise introduces children to various aspects of writing and producing literature. (DF)

The central focus of this second edition is the same as that of the first edition: to describe the language-experience approach and to identify instructional practices which can be followed to teach reading with this approach. In addition, the volume expands the theoretical foundations of language-experience communication, extends the…

A computer program entitled "Story Time" encourages preschool children to use the important language skills that develop during the first 3 or 4 years of life to create and print original stories. Although the computer does not write the stories, it aids the children in the creation of stories by prompting them with questions. In order to use the…

To make sense of unknown words encountered in their reading, children must relate what they read to their prior knowledge. It is important to use children's language in early reading instruction, through the use of language experience stories that provide children with a natural transition from oral to written language. Nursery rhymes may also be…