Results of a study of early reading responses of young children in a Finnish preschool challenge the belief that grapheme-phoneme regularity is a critical factor in beginning reading. (JM)

Reports research which shows that a wide gap exists between basal reader language and children's level of oral language development. (JM)

Examines how the child approaches reading and spelling in the light of the developmental sequence of phonological awareness skills, by looking at the growth of these skills from the initial formation of each skill through the early stages of their development. (RS)

Reviews research on the possible roles that errors might play in learning to read. Contrasts a productive view of errors with the view that errors are problematic to instruction, stating that the two are compatible. Concludes that errors can have both a generative and an inhibiting function depending upon instructional conditions. (GEA)

Five subskills in learning to read are identified, and their place in the methods of teaching reading and their relations to each other are discussed. It is concluded that phonemic segmentation must be the most important and the most difficult task in learning to read. (Author/LMO)

Examines the nature of listening assessment and recent developments of appropriate tests. Shows listenability to be a function of orality in language and offers a summary of discourse characteristics for selecting materials appropriate to listening instruction. (FL)

Reviews the environmental and functional print reading research and discusses its significance in relation to children's emerging literacy. (BB)

The authors explore ways in which beginning reading books present cultural perspectives to young children. They examine certain modes of thought, experience, and interaction prevalent in the child's preschool life in contrast to other types of experiences characteristic of the culture of formal and literate schooling. (Author/CT)

Discusses techniques to use with adult beginning readers in the areas of (1) assessment (i.e., interviewing, voice pointing); (2) discussion (i.e., explaining approaches, incorporating interests); and (3) instruction (i.e., assisted reading, progress tracking). (CH)

Examines preschool children's understanding of the reading process. Results indicate that children's immediate experiences and their developmental characteristics had an impact on their conception of reading. (Author/AS)

Investigates the effect of word acquisition by kindergarten children under two conditions of instruction: an isolated-word condition and a word-sentence condition. (HOD)

Reports the results of a survey of primary school head teachers in England carried out in order to take a broad "sounding" of mainstream practice with respect to volunteer help with reading within schools. (DF)

Explains the need for teaching elementary school students about expository text structure and presents a comprehensive method for doing this. (FL)

Reports that by combining a phonetic writing system with instruction in carefully selected clusters of related Chinese characters, Chinese schools can start children on productive reading at an early age with texts closer to their developed cognitive levels. (FL)

Reviews the psycholinguistic view of the relationship between reading and written and spoken language and presents teaching strategies for beginning readers based on this view. (FL)