Reports on a study that examined the preferences of kindergarten children for upper or lower case letters. Concludes that preference for letters may result from the development of an aesthetic sense. (FL)

Details a study showing that for young children, proactive semantic cues were the most helpful in reading. Reveals also that the children made miscues displaying semantic associations across cue types. (FL)

Argues that the language experience approach to the teaching of beginning reading not only makes use of the valuable resource of children's speaking, but also cultivates their metalinguistic ability and eases their transition between two very different forms of language. (FL)

Discusses the insights into learning to read derived from studying a foreign language later in life. Compares some phenomena of foreign language learning to similar reading phenomena observed in primary grade classrooms. (HTH)

Uses a naturalistic setting to explore the effects of word-recognition instruction by a context method and a word-alone method to find out if mode of assessment plays a part in determining efficiency of methods. (HOD)

Notes that little research has been undertaken into the effects of anthropomorphism on children's reading and presents questions concerning the use of this device in beginning reading materials. (FL)

Reveals that first-grade students preferred to read silently, while third-grade students preferred oral reading. Third-grade readers' reasons for preferring oral reading indicated that they had been conditioned to view reading as a means of allowing teachers an opportunity to correct mistakes rather than as a communicative activity. (FL)

Teaching suggestions and game ideas are presented for teaching basic and more advanced decoding in the primary and intermediate grades. This article is one of four in this issue that comprise the Teacher's Reading Seminar 1979. (SJL)

The Student-Level Observation of Beginning Reading (SOBR) was designed to focus on the content of instructional activities in reading at the individual student level, and is based on a time sample of time spent on specific activities. (Author/BW)

Describes a procedure for assessing a beginning reader's knowledge of the spoken word/written word match in reading. (FL)

Briefly defines nine distinct methods of teaching reading and summarizes how teachers use reading materials. (AEA)

This 1974 survey of teacher education programs in Australia presents a comprehensive description of approaches to the preparation of primary school teachers in the areas of reading and mathematics. (JN)

Describes a preschool program that introduces four-year-olds to print concepts such as left to right, top to bottom, words beginning with the same sound, and upper and lower case letters. (AEA)

Presents findings on children's notions about reading, suggests using the language experience approach in teaching reading, and lists classroom activities to promote unity in the language arts. (AEA)

Phonemic awareness tasks are identified: sound-to-word matching, word-to-word matching, rhyme recognition, isolation segmentation, counting sounds, blending, deletion, and substitution. Methods for teaching segmentation and blending, the most cortical tasks, are discussed. (Author/CP)