Results of a study of teacher rankings of reading readiness suggested that teacher rankings are as reliable as reankings using the Metropolitan Readiness Tests; the results did not indicate that teacher expectations of student achievement can be altered. (FL)

Argues that the teaching of initial reading should focus upon the beginning reader rather than on teaching procedures and that factors in the individual child such as motivation, experience, oral language, cognitive development, and pace of learning should be considered. (FL)

A study of 46 first-grade children to determine how basal instructed and language experience instructed children would differ in their use of written language cues revealed no significant differences between the two groups in their use of these cues. (TJ)

A study involving 65 children from 5.6 to 9.5 years of age suggested that the average child's ability to differentiate spoken words from other units of speech improves with age and that significant relationships exist between children's knowledge of spoken words and their reading achievement. (GT)

Examines the following: the history and current status of the assessment of prereading skills or reading readiness in the United States, recent research findings with implications for readiness testing, future directions for prereading measures, and classroom implications of prereading assessment research. (GT)

Significant differences were observed between sentence length used by children in speaking and the length of sentences in primers and first reader textbooks. (JD)

Examines the relationships among accuracy and latency of word recognition and comprehension by nonfluent readers and whether component letter or holistic processing was used in word recognition by these same readers. (HOD)

First graders were taught to read words either in printed sentence contexts or printed singly on flash cards. Post-test scores indicated that context-trained children learned more about the semantic identities of printed words, while flash card-trained children could read the words faster and learned more about orthographic forms. (JMB)

In order to determine at which age children in Montessori Schools show an interest in reading and what types of materials are used to maintain interest, a questionnaire was sent to five schools in Louisville, Kentucky, accredited by the Montessori Society (a sample questionnaire is included). (MM)

This study confirms the hypothesis that poor children's difficulties with sounds stem not from deficiencies in auditory discrimination but from inadequate skill in phonemic analysis. Almost all of disadvantaged and middle-class kindergarten-age children could readily hear phoneme differences in words. Almost all of the disadvantaged children, but…

Finds that most discussions about beginning reading quickly become discussions on the best way to teach decoding skills. Advocates personalized reading instruction as an approach that offers the most promise of meeting the reading needs of children. Outlines six tenets for the teacher to follow for the most fruitful beginning reading instruction.…

Compares effectiveness of four different methods for acquiring initial reading vocabulary--onset plus vowel, rimes, phoneme segmentation and blending, and simple repetition of whole words. Finds that beginning nonreaders acquired the trained words fastest in the onset and rime conditions, and most slowly in the whole word condition. Finds the same…

This article finds that two aspects of phonological working memory, phonological coding and phonological recoding, appear to be important elements in the relationship between phonological working memory and phonological awareness. It suggests an approach to training in phonological awareness and reports an intervention study in which phonological…

Considers if Reading Recovery students continue to make gains after discontinuation or the end of their programs. Investigates if a majority of the Reading Recovery students at Culver Elementary School, Evansville, Indiana achieve average reading levels at the end of their program. Concludes that Reading Recovery is successful at this school. (SG)

Describes the features of the first grade texts included in basal readers used for beginning reading instruction in Texas in 2000. Investigates the general features of student texts with respect to the instructional design of the text, the accessibility of the text for beginning readers, and the engaging qualities of the text. Suggests that policy…