Publishing children's written work in the elementary classroom enables children to see themselves as creators of ideas, as producers of language, and as functioning members of the language community. This paper suggests many forms in which children's writings may be published. Step-by-step explanations and accompanying illustrations tell how 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…

Tracing the development of "concept of story" in one child from age three years to five years using the language experience task, a hierarchy of text/context relationships emerges. First there is the inventory stage whereby the child names and describes behaviors to objects. The second stage is descriptive and the child modifies the object and the…

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.…

The purpose of this publication is to provide kindergarten teachers with the rationale, ideas, and activities necessary for implementing an experience-based language/prereading program in their classrooms. The various sections contain a rationale for using language experience activities; suggestions for classroom management of such activities; and…

The primary focus of this paper is on black children and the relationship between their productive and receptive language competencies. The solutions which have been proposed to solve the dilemma of black pupils' poor reading achievement are discussed. It is noted that none of the proposed solutions has the unqualified support provided by a mass…

One of the programs included in "Effective Reading Programs....," is this program begun in 1969 which uses a language experience approach during the first three years of the children's education, kindergarten through second grade. The primary objective is to develop an initial sight vocabulary and word recognition skills in each child by…

This program, included in "Effective Reading Programs...," serves K-5 students in a small rural town. The strengths of children are the focus of this program, which uses teaching strategies introduced by Robert Wilson of the University of Maryland reading center. Teacher-prepared diagnostic tests and skills checklists are used to…

Goodman's hypothesis, that the task of learning to read is made more difficult as the divergence between the dialect of the learner and that of the material increases, raises three questions considered by the author to be central to the dialect/reading issue. The first asks what influence dialect has on acquiring reading ability; the second asks…

A practical and detailed account of how the language-experience approach to reading instruction functions is presented. The importance of the bond between thought, word, and deed and reading, writing, and school learning is emphasized, The included chapters describe the function of dictated experience stories, building a word bank, creative…

To successfully apply methods and materials to the student's individual needs, a teacher must be familiar with many reading methods and approaches. This book is designed to provide insights to nine different reading approaches: basal reading, language experience, individualized, linguistic, phonic, alphabetic, programed instruction, preschool…