To examine the hypothesis that children learn to ask questions by modeling their parents' behaviors during interactive book-reading experiences, transcripts of reading experiences of nine mother-child dyads from the Harvard Home-School Study of Language and Literacy Development were examined. Found that few questions were asked. Results did not…

Describes reading aloud to students in a college remedial English class, arguing that this improves writing ability by helping students learn to "hear" the sounds of the material they are required to read in connection with their writing assignments. Discusses success getting students to revise by requiring rewriting on the computer and by…

Presents reviews of 22 poetry anthologies, collections of poems by 1 poet, and books that contain a single illustrated poem. Urges students and teachers to bring poetry alive by reading it aloud. (RS)

Suggest that read-alouds model expressive reading, transmit the pleasure of reading, and invite listeners to be readers. Presents examples for secondary schools and for methods courses and inservice. Discusses locating great read-alouds. (RS)

Discusses 72 books published in 1991 and 1992 that represent outstanding examples of poetry for children and indicate just how wide and receptive the audience for poetry is. (RS)

Describes strategies that research indicates caregivers use while reading books with young children: strategies that simplify or extend book language; prosody; and management strategies so the book reading event is meaningful for children. Suggests how teachers can use these same strategies in preschool settings to plan meaningful book sharing.…

Explores the kinds of literary understandings that become evident in African American second graders' unprompted oral and physical responses to "Malcolm X" and the cultural resources that children draw as they demonstrate these literary understandings. Concludes that discussion of multicultural literature can prompt the construction of…

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…

Stress assignment to three- and four-syllable Italian words is not predictable by rule, but needs lexical look-up. The present study investigated whether stress assignment to low-frequency Italian words is determined by stress regularity, or by the number of words sharing the final phonological segment and the stress pattern (stress neighborhood…

Parents are their child's first and most important teacher. This booklet introduces parents to techniques for helping their toddlers learn to read. Included is a story about how one mother encourages her son to read, a sample reading activity, and a checklist for parents of toddlers. This brochure is based on "A Child Becomes a Reader--Birth to…

This study describes the interactions of three adult-child reading partnerships in a program that matches corporate volunteers with "at risk" students for weekly hour-long story reading sessions. Using discourse analysis within a sociocultural framework, the researcher identified variation in the way these partners were constructing the act and…

English-language learners, according to research, learn best through instruction that draws upon their strength in their first language. It is unlikely that any teacher would have knowledge of even a fraction of the languages that are spoken by students in American classrooms, particularly since some large school districts report as many as a…

A practicum developed and implemented reading strategies to increase the positive attitudes toward recreational reading of a third-grade target group. The practicum focused on five central strategies for achieving objectives: alternative book reports, home leisure reading, guest reader program, read-aloud student response journals, and writing and…

Reading aloud is an essential part of the classroom instructional program, along with direct instruction and sustained silent reading or book contact, and should not be slighted despite the numerous time demands from other sources. Reading aloud to children provides opportunities for introducing children to good literature and encourages language…

By being asked to read out loud, students learn how words are used to create specific effects and how they should read literature. (DD)