Principles of establishing priorities are applied to the selection and scheduling of instructional priorities for beginning reading instruction, with emphasis on teaching phonological awareness and letter-sound knowledge through more efficient use of instructional time; teaching less, more thoroughly; and providing oppportunities for oral…

This response to Torgesen et al. (EC 608 625) considers educational implications of their longitudinal study on phonological processing and beginning reading. It addresses the stability of phonological processing abilities, training in phoneme awareness, and variables that influence training effectiveness. (DB)

Discusses materials that help primary-grade students develop a richer supply of words: books, audiotapes, and magnetic poetry kits for teachers and/or for students. (SR)

Presents five articles discussing aspects of literacy promotion in the day care center setting: "Promoting Language, Literacy, and a Love of Learning Makes a Difference (Joan Lombardi); "Creating Readers" (Leah Curry-Rood); "Family Literacy" (Jean Berry Racin); "Setting the Stage for Literacy Events in the Classroom" (Judith A. Schickedanz); and…

Considers if Hispanic and non-Hispanic second graders acquire knowledge of structural features of words in the same order and at the same rate. Reveals that both groups appear to be acquiring knowledge of the structural features of words at different rates, but in a roughly similar order with Hispanic learners lagging behind the non-Hispanic…

Suggests that pairing emergent readers of approximately equal expertise provides opportunities for collaborative relationships where young readers pool expertise in jointly constructing text. Notes that children's language use contributed to their shared motivation and, by extension, helped to create and support the "shared situations"…

Comparison of basic reading instruction by either computer assisted instruction or traditional book methods with eight children (ages 3-5) with autism found all children spent more time on task in the computer condition and that five of the eight children could reliably identify at least three words after the computer assisted learning. (Contains…

Reading Recovery is an early intervention program that aims to drastically reduce the number of children who need remedial help in reading and writing in their later school years. Developed in New Zealand in 1984, the 12-15-week program is now being used across Canada. (Author/SV)

Investigates the use of orthographic analogies in 6-year-olds. Notes that neither rime nor phoneme awareness measures were correlated with rime inference uses and that vowel, but not rime inference, was correlated with scaffolding errors. Finds that rime detection was the strongest predictor of reading ability, whereas phoneme segmentation was the…

Uses Dewey's concept of growth as "the ability to learn from experience" to discuss the learning histories of three male literacy learners. From this perspective, their progress toward goals, rather than achievement, is the primary focus. (Contains 30 references.) (SK)

Discusses the use of double meanings and figurative language or figures of speech in literature and how confusing it can be for beginning readers. Describes class activities that can help students construct, examine, and extend the meaning of what they read and includes a worksheet, evaluation suggestions, and extension activities. (LRW)

Explores how knowledge and use of the teaching/learning cycle in beginning reading instruction impacts teacher decision-making and student achievement. Focuses on how students' learning was affected and the impact of the changes on student/teacher interactions. Finds that when teachers understand and apply the teaching/learning cycle in their…

Reports and discusses students' progress through a 15-week reading course for preservice elementary teachers. Indicates that this group of students demonstrated positive changes in their attitudes/beliefs in the first stage. Notes that the students in Stage 2 differed in evaluations of their field experience, their lesson planning skills, and…

This study examined the effectiveness of a phonological awareness reading intervention with seven first-graders at risk for conduct and attention problems. Findings support the efficacy of the program but suggest the intervention may not have been of sufficient intensity and duration to produce lasting changes and produce beginning reading skill…

Investigates whether two groups of 6-year-old beginning readers taught to read by a phonics and by a "book experience" non-phonics approach would differ in reading comprehension as well as the processes of word recognition. Finds that the non-phonics approach taught children much faster reading reaction times to familiar words but they scored…