Basal readers are supposed to be easy for children to read, but sometimes their language is so unnatural that it's more confusing than helpful. (MKM)

Rural Brazilian first graders who read stories about their local environment performed better than their counterparts who read stories with urban settings. (MKM)

Innumerable surveys have shown that the young child who has had sustained conversation with adults, who has been read to continuously, and who has learned to talk about the stories and pictures, grows up to be a steady reader. Gives suggestions for helping young children to become young readers and recommends some reading materials for parents…

Describes a study of the Vancouver Project (British Columbia), integrating the Ashton-Warner Key Vocabulary approach to beginning reading instruction into nine open classrooms. (BF)

Reports a study which assessed and compared the verbal responses of good and poor readers at the end of the first grade using a paradigmatic-syntagmatic classification scale for responses. (JM)

Research indicates that the Wallach and Wallach tutorial reading program for low-readiness first graders which emphasizes phoneme identification skills is effective. (MKM)

For journal availability, see EC 092 078. Described are specific suggestions for organizing sight words to be learned by educable mentally retarded pupils. (CL)

Presents results of a survey of teachers using basal readers in their classrooms. Responses included (1) though the concept is good, specific series do not satisfy children's individual needs, (2) most basal series are easily integrated with other approaches, and (3) a basal reader is only as effective as the teacher. (AEW)

Describes children's process of constructing their own knowledge by going through one level after another of being "wrong" and relates this process to reading. Describes six strategies children invent and discusses implications for teaching. (AS)

Examines the relationship between pre-school reading and reading achievement among 343 seven year-old students. Pre-school reading scores were significantly related to word matching ability, concepts about print, letter identification, word reading, and oral vocabulary. (RKM)

Compares the effect on beginning readers' main idea comprehension of a direct instruction model, basal reader main idea comprehension lessons, and language extension lessons for group-dictated experience charts. Reports that the direct instruction group outperformed basal and control groups in determining main ideas across a variety of tasks. (MM)

Investigates the process involved in acquiring word knowledge from written context in prereading kindergarten children. Analyzes children's readings of picture books to identify patterns of vocabulary growth. Concludes that children learned lexicogrammatical information incidentally through exposure to written context. (MM)

Reports three experiments conducted to examine the ability of beginning readers (in kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2) to categorize short front vowel sounds in familiar spoken words and to determine whether learning spellings of these vowel sounds improved the accuracy of their classifications. Discusses implications for learning to read and…

Longitudinal study investigated the relationship between print awareness and reading during the reading acquisition process of children from kindergarten through first grade. Results indicate that while print awareness plays a role in children's transition towards literacy, that role is entwined with the role of other reading knowledge and skills.…

Claims that even though teaching phonics is an effective method of reading instruction, the skills taught by phonics have little to do with the process of reading acquisition. Offers two methods of resolving the paradoxes generated by this situation. (NH)