Questions pertaining to beginning reading, success, and failure are addressed. The issues of concern are: (1) When reading begins? (2) What preschool activities seem to help certain children succeed as readers? (3) What characteristics and conditions are associated with reading failure in first grade? (4) What early experiences might help children…

To compare the progress of New York City children with those of other first graders across the country, as well as to establish baseline data for evaluations of early childhood programs and provide direction for second-grade reading instruction, a pilot study examined approximately 5,000 randomly selected first-grade students from monolingual…

This guide provides specific information on designing and implementing a reading program. The guide is divided into the following six parts: (1) "Planning for Instruction," including sections on setting ideal goals, establishing a "reality base," and organizing a work flow; (2) "Content Organization," including sections on the structure of…

A study evaluated the effectiveness of the Success in Beginning Reading and Writing (SBRW) program which is based on the philosophy that children should be taught to read and write using materials they will rely on later in life. Subjects, four teachers and 48 students in the SBRW program and five teachers and 50 students in a Holt Basic Reading…

In order to see if an extended-day kindergarten program has a greater effect than a half-day kindergarten program on reading achievement in the first-grade, a study compared standardized test scores of two different groups of first-grade students. Subjects, a group of 44 students who had participated in a half-day kindergarten program and a second…

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…

A child progresses from listening to speaking, to developing vocabulary and word recognition skills, to reading the printed page. After a child develops language, vocabulary enrichment should be provided in a functional, meaningful, and real manner. Putting words in syntactical structure, hanging them around the room as labels, or mounting them on…

The results of an earlier experimental study of the effectiveness of a set of principles for small group instruction in first grade reading groups called for a revision of the list of principles. Revised principles were written for (1) group organization (seating, transitions, starting the lesson); (2) the introduction of lessons and activities…

The vocabulary lists from five basal readers were examined in an effort (1) to determine what information is taught in the form of phonic generalizations in current, primary-level basal readers; (2) to examine intraprogram reliability of those generalizations; and (3) to determine whether the content of generalization instruction had changed since…

Discourse comprehension involves readers or listeners in constructing mental models using local text information, global text structures, and their general knowledge of the world. An analysis of the literature on children's understanding of spoken discourse reveals that young children are capable of forming mental models from texts, but that their…

A study was conducted to determine the effects of word imagery on the retention of sight vocabulary. It was hypothesized that in an urban, low income area first grade class there would be no significant difference between the acquisition and retention rates of high imagery words and those of low imagery words. Using one group of high imagery words…

A 15-item questionnaire, completed by 93 superintendents of Connecticut schools, focused on the identification, program design, instructional strategies, and support provided for early readers, their teachers, and their parents. Responses to each item are summarized statistically, and the general patterns that emerge in each of these areas are…

Children's well-developed oral language skills obviously facilitate their reading and learning to read. In contrast to a traditional position which contends that reading comprehension equals oral comprehension skills plus decoding, this paper claims that a child must learn (and, perhaps, unlearn) many more skills in the transition from oral…

In this study, two different approaches to the teaching of reading were designed and presented over an eight-week period, then evaluated according to student scores on three standardized tests. After a pretest, nine first-grade classes were randomly assigned to one of three groups: literature, concept development, or control. In the literature…

Beginning reading instruction is a challenge that teachers can meet successfully by using imagination, working hard, displaying enthusiasm, and expressing genuine concern for the young children that they teach. This paper offers guidelines for beginning reading teachers who base their programs on traditional basal readers. The guidelines are…