Concludes that children have well-developed knowledge of the purposes of reading materials and instructional procedures and that their perceptions of basal readers are very negative. (FL)

Describes the interactive literacy learning process in the home context, and compares this with the literacy interaction between the child and the kindergarten teacher. Concludes that children's literacy growth is a result of literacy activities in the home rather than a result of activities in the school. (MM)

A recent study of reading rates of first grade students in Israel and America indicates that increased reading speed may improve comprehension and oral reading. Based on this finding, activities to help students read faster (and better) are suggested. (JL)

Explains ways in which a kindergarten teacher can encourage reading among children by sharing books with them; sharing ideas about the conventions of print, art and writing; and discussing children's ideas for pictures, stories, and writing. (BB)

Suggests that bilingual children, because of their sensitivity to contexts for using their two languages, are likely to have a heightened awareness of the possible range of contexts for literacy and the range of communicative functions which written messages may convey. Also argues for an apporach to early literacy that acknowledges the importance…

Discusses a study which analyzed question-answer instructional segments from second-grade small group reading lessons, according to Barrett's (1976) and Pearson and Johnson's (1978) taxonomies. (MM)

Study investigated the perspectives of parents who read aloud to their young children. Results indicate that outside information can increase parents' awareness of the importance of reading aloud to their children and can motivate them to do so. (MM)

Concludes that spelling-trained kindergarten children learned to read a set of words more effectively than controls. Argues that their greater success was not because they had learned to sound out and blend words, but rather because they had become better at phonetic cue reading. (FL)

Reports two studies in which 5- and 6-year-old children were given word order awareness tasks, followed 3 or 5 months later by vocabulary, reading achievement, and reading readiness (for the 5-year-olds) tests. (Author/NH)

Reviews the major theoretical statements regarding the contribution of literature to reading development, noting that they fall into two interwoven strands: the notion of learning to read through literature, and learning to read literature. Evaluates the empirical evidence supporting the claim that literature plays an important role in learning to…

In order to study the reading attitudes of preschoolers, 2,232 early childhood program participants from different ethnic groups were given the Preschool Reading Attitudes Scale. Factor analysis showed substantial loading in three categories: (1) Reading Books in General; (2) Reading Printed Material in School; and (3) Reading Books in the…

Reports results of four experiments testing whether syllable structure affects children's performance in phonemic analysis tasks and in other reading related tasks. The experiments were motivated by theories that syllables consist of an onset (initial consonant or consonant cluster) and a rime (vowel and any following consonants). (AS/Author)

Presents evidence that reading can be learned by the same informal and unstructured methods as speech, and calls for a concentration on slow readers. (CRH)

Provides a system for evaluating both the quality and the appropriateness of the placement and instructional tests that accompany basal reading series. (FL)

Forty kindergarten children were randomly assigned to four conditions to investigate the influence of criterion level on the discrimination of highly confusable letters in beginning reading. Half the subjects were exposed to simultaneous, and half to successive discriminations. The groups were equally divided as to criterion level, i.e., four vs.…