Examines literacy development among a group of preschool and kindergarten children through changes in the form, function, and perception of their written names. Studies 67 3-, 4-, and 5-year olds, their teachers, instructional aides, and 6 case-study parents participating in a yearlong analysis. Concludes that "name" has the…

Argues for the use of American Sign Language (ASL), rather than spoken English or Manual English, with deaf children in to build language and thinking skills and thereby mediate the meaning of English in print and facilitate literacy development. (DB)

Responds to a critique of an article on the advantage of reading instructional approaches emphasizing explicit instruction in the alphabetic principle for at-risk children. While the critique suggested it was an over-simplistic solution to a complex problem, this response suggests there are some instructional principles that can be used to enhance…

Assesses 48 French children's phonological skills from kindergarten to the end of grade two. Finds that the French-speaking children used phonological mediation in silent-reading tasks and that phonological processing contributes to the construction of the orthographic lexicon. (RS)

Presents an instructional framework for use with beginning readers that focuses on strategy development and the use of authentic, purposeful materials. Provides a teaching "guide" to help teachers understand the important metacognitive features of the program, but notes that it is up to teachers to plan, teach, and evaluate their students'…

Reviews the literature on decodable text, instructional material containing words with phonically regular relationships that the reader has been taught. Synthesizes findings into a theoretical model that suggests a specific developmental juncture in which decodable text may be useful. Concludes that additional analyses of words in text are not…

This review of research focuses on three issues in reading development: (1) the relationship of phonemic awareness to the variance in reading development not accounted for by rapid naming; (2) the relationship of rapid naming to the variance not accounted for by phonemic awareness; and (3) whether phonemic awareness and rapid naming contribute…

First grade students (n=221) were tested on measures of verbal fluency, visual attention, phonological awareness, orthographic recognition, rapid automated naming (RAN) of letters and objects, and reading. Findings indicated that word reading was directly and significantly predicted by RAN letter naming and general RAN cognitive processing time of…

Investigates the relationship of rapid serial naming (RSN) and other variables thought to contribute to beginning word reading (phonological awareness, orthographic knowledge, memory span, processing speed, and articulation). Explores a preliminary/exploratory model of word reading. Indicates that no variable in the model could fully…

Discusses the author's experience as a kindergarten teacher with students who have had a wide range of literacy within the home. Notes how some parents "misuse" the "Hooked on Phonics" program and their children gain no benefit from it. Proposes that educators lower "the legal reading age," providing all children--even the youngest ones--with…

Finds teaching prereading kindergartners in the rime analogy strategy and prereading skills resulted in more reading than teaching either alone. Notes many children developed the untaught abilities of medial and final phoneme identity and the letter recoding reading strategy; and children were able to generalize the rime analogy strategy to read…

This article presents an interview with Dr. Sylvia O. Richardson, a pediatrician, speech-language pathologist, researcher, scholar, teacher, and clinician, who has been involved in the field of language-learning disabilities for many years. Widely-published in the areas of language disorders and dyslexia, and a former President of the American…

Reading fluency has been identified as a key goal for the elementary school reading curriculum. Despite its theoretical importance in reading development and research that has demonstrated its effectiveness in improving reading performance, many teachers are not familiar with effective methods of instruction for reading fluency and ways for…

This paper examines young children's working styles when they are engaged with a peer on a computer-based reading task. Two types of pairing were investigated: (i) "Equal pairs", where the children were of equal reading attainment and (ii) "Unequal pairs", where there was a disparity between the children's reading attainment. The results suggest…

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 created the Reading First program to help ensure that all students could read at or above grade level by the end of grade 3. The program promotes practices recommended by the National Reading Panel for early reading instruction, highlighting essential components of reading instruction. As required by the…