Presents, in a question-and-answer format, the views of two first grade teachers new to the Reading Recovery program. Explains the program and its impact on the students and teachers. (RS)

Discusses the technology for displaying closed captions on television, explains recent legislation that requires built-in caption decoders, and discusses the educational potential of captioned television and video for special education classrooms, beginning readers, English-as-a-Second-Language students, remedial readers, and adults engaged in…

Evaluates children at-risk for reading failure as kindergartners and again as first graders. Suggests that lexical access ability is an important factor in reading acquisition and that different combinations of phonological processes may be related to different aspects of reading. (RS)

Discusses what a sign system is, using the examples of art, music, drama, mathematics, and language. Explores how people use signs, and research on sign systems. Investigates how multiple sign systems can be incorporated into the classroom. Notes that supporting learners' flexible use of multiple sign systems may offer a better way to teach…

Considers two different views of beginning reading, one emphasizing the alphabetic nature of written language and the other focusing on contextual, as opposed to graphic, information. Examines different perspectives by evaluating oral reading errors in 15 first graders. Results support the influence of instructional approach on children's…

Ten French-speaking preschool children in Quebec with intellectual disabilities received either an intervention program based on the emergent literacy paradigm involving modeling, exploration, and interaction with an adult, or a comparison intervention. Pre- and post-test comparisons with a control group found the only item on which experimental…

A study involving 18 children (ages 4-11) at a residential school for students with deafness found that children who participated in group storybook reading twice each week for 5 months performed more independently on an emergent reading task and were more interested in books than children in the control group. (Author/CR)

This study investigated the development of alphabet knowledge among 91 nonreading children followed from the beginning of kindergarten through the middle of first grade. Findings suggested that alphabet knowledge consists of both letter-name and letter-sound knowledge, which have different developmental patterns and which have unique importance…

Examines three children's early experiences of school literacy lessons to consider what makes a difference in their relative success and failure during the first months of school. Argues that how, whether, and to what extent children take up what teachers make available to them is inextricably connected with the repertoires of practices and…

This study assessed the emergent literacy skills of 48 4-year-old migrant Mexican American preschoolers in their dominant language and evaluated the amount of literacy exposure in the home and the Head Start program. Results suggested that although both environments influence emergent literacy skills, the home literacy environment has the greatest…

Offers a case study of one student's struggles with the demands of school literacy throughout his primary school years. Illustrates how such children rely on the innovation, energy, and good will of individual teachers; and how his fragile literacy is under threat in the transition to more fragmented learning environment of secondary school. (SR)

Administers three measures of phonological processing to Chinese first graders. Notes that earlier research indicates a strong relationship between children's phonological processing skills and early reading ability in alphabetic orthography. Finds that this relationship is not specific to reading an alphabetic orthography--the relationship…

A follow-on study was conducted on first-grade and third-grade children who were tested on a word identification measure of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test. Results found decoding strategy was highly correlated with concurrent reading test scores. Use of phonetic decoding was a strong positive predictor and whole word decoding a negative…

Discusses implications for Montessori Teachers of research findings relating children's phonological awareness and reading skills. Notes the importance of using a rich prereading background with manageable and multisensory alphabetic instruction and oral-language games to prepare children to read. Maintains that word-play games provide early,…

This study examined the discriminability of lexigrams versus printed words with eight adults with severe mental retardation. A match-to-sample teaching paradigm was used. Subjects discriminated lexigrams better than printed letters and were more successful at matching lexigrams to referent objects than matching printed words to referent objects.…