Suggests that be sharing power in the classroom teachers allow the development of participatory classrooms in which all students can thrive. Examines participatory teaching and critical pedagogy, components of the participatory learning experience, manifestations of participatory teaching, an application of the language experience approach,…

Reviews basic procedures and theories supporting the Language Experience Approach as it applies to second language learning and literacy instruction. (Author/VWL)

To examine the effects of whole language and language experience approaches on beginning reading achievement, a quantitative synthesis was performed on two databases: 5 first-grade studies of the United States Office of Education and 46 additional studies comparing basal reading approaches to whole language and language experience approaches. (SLD)

Discusses the Language Experience Approach and process writing, two methods which approach reading and writing as active processes, stressing communication and meaning. Asserts that these methods are compatible and shows how they can be combined and incorporated into kindergarten and primary level classes. (MM)

Considers the use of sociodramatic play to help preschool children with their literacy development. Describes and assesses the Scrapbook Project at a university laboratory preschool. In this project, children dictate stories to their teacher, choose props to illustrate their stories, and act out their stories. (BB)

Describes a joint literacy program between Drexel University in Philadelphia and the Center for Literacy which is based on three nonintrusive instructional procedures: the language-experience approach, individualized reading, and expressive writing. Presents case studies of three adult learners. Evaluates the program's effectiveness. (SR)

Whole language is an approach to, or attitude toward learning that sees language as a whole entity, and writing, speaking, reading, and listening should be integrated when learned. It is not a teaching method. Each whole language teacher implements the theories of whole language as he or she sees fit for a particular class. Whole language…

This report describes a project that used children's literature to introduce 6- and 7-year-old children (n=25) in the United States to other languages to arouse their interest in finding out more about language. Most of the children were monolingual and spoke English; two boys spoke some Spanish. The study was conducted to see if young children's…

A study investigated what effect, if any, a planned program of writing activities had on reading comprehension. A group of second grade students from Linden Elementary School, West Virginia, were the subjects. Subjects were divided into a control (12 students) and an experimental (13 students) group. Both groups were given a pretest and a…

A study investigated the relationship among reading style, instructional method, and reading achievement. Subjects were 213 second-grade students attending a large school in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area, with 84 students using a basal reader series with a phonics emphasis, 90 students using a basal reader series with a mixed emphasis, and…

This study was conducted to determine the effect that hands-on, creative activity using the Language Experience Approach would have on language usage in students' written stories. Twenty-five fifth grade students were randomly divided into three sample groups. Sample A received hands-on, creative stimulus and art materials; Sample B looked at and…

Described in this manual are numerous skills-based oral language activities for Head Start and kindergarten children and for students in first through sixth grades. Activities are sequentially organized at four levels; all levels include activities in the areas of auditory discrimination, auditory memory, communication, syntax, description, and…

The experiences of a teacher of English as a second language in teaching reading in English to an enthusiastic and illiterate Ethiopian woman married to an American and living in the United States are described. The Ethiopian woman was eager to talk on the telephone, take messages for her husband, go to the store by herself, read to her…

A Piagetian, language-experience approach to the early teaching of reading to normal young and older developmentally delayed preoperational children was developed. The approach was discussed in a specially-developed manual which was field tested by 42 teachers among 390 children in 16 school systems in several states and in Canada. Subjects were…

The psychological and linguistic rationales for an integrative approach to teaching reading and language that is based on the language experience and shared book approaches are presented, and the necessary changes in the Singapore educational system are outlined. Because the program is an integrated language arts approach, reading instruction time…