A descriptive study examined whether reading aloud to children regularly beginning at infancy would have an effect on their future disposition to reading. Subjects, 487 kindergarten through third grade students in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, were given a questionnaire to be completed by the parents. Ninety-seven questionnaires representing 116…

There are three serious impediments to the acceptance of voice as a practical focus in the college writing classroom: the attitudes and beliefs of educators; the theories guiding classroom practices; and the classroom practices themselves. A means of overcoming these impediments and of ensuring that students will discover and develop the power of…

The focus of the articles in this theme issue of a journal for librarians and teachers working with young children is storytelling. The first article, "Observations on Storytelling," (K. Roberts) relates how storytelling can be essential to reading--if one observes the law of diminishing returns. The second article, "How to Turn a Story Hour Into…

This 53-item annotated bibliography reviews the research on the value of reading aloud to students, the benefits of incorporating literature into the classroom, effective behaviors of parents and teachers, and creative ways of incorporating these techniques to create better and more interested readers. This bibliography was designed to be…

A study assessed the impact of the home literacy environment on kindergartners' recall of topically familiar and unfamiliar information. Subjects, 32 kindergarten students (16 from a public school and 16 in a gifted program in a private school), were selected from a mid-sized, mid-western community. All subjects recalled two of four…

Noting that writers frequently use reading aloud to evaluate written drafts, two studies were conducted to determine the extent to which holistic scores assigned by readers to college freshman essays correlated with holistic scores assigned by listeners. One study used 39 narrative essays, the other used 39 expository essays. The results of the…

Many students now entering college have read so little as to be classed "preliterate," making the problems of teaching the classics of narrative fiction complex. An analysis of the relationship between reading and speech implies that students must begin in childhood with a rich oral culture; those who have been strangers to discourse are not…

Introducing Preschool Children to Reading through Parent Involvement is a project funded by a New York State Education Department mini-grant. The major activity of the project is to inform parents of preschool children of the research findings and theories concerning reading to young children. Three newsletters are mailed each year to families…

One of the nonschool factors influencing children's reading ability is the home environment. Data from recent research point out four factors that promote child readiness for reading in the home: (1) availability and range of printed materials in the home; (2) reading is done in the home; (3) home facilitates contact with paper and pencil; (4)…

Techniques for alleviating language students' fears of listening to themselves and making themselves heard and understood, using reading aloud, are presented and illustrated. (MSE)

A variety of children's and preteen books are reviewed, including several introductions to poetry and five books of fiction. The themes of the books are happiness, humor, and hope. (JL)

Suggests that using the game of finding answers to mystery clues can encourage children, particularly reluctant readers, to use the library. (JC)

Describes the formation of story awareness in young children, suggesting methods for assessment and activities to facilitate its development. (KS)

Relates the expressive writing experiences of children at Deddington primary school in rural Oxfordshire. (HOD)

Describes observations of mother-child dyads during reading aloud events. Traces the changes in the mothers' interactional strategies as the children grew over the six-month period, and the mothers adapted to the experiential, linguistic, and literacy background of the children to construct meaning from the text. (HTH)