Young learners need a quality program for developing reading skills which is both sequential and holistic--sequential because there is an appropriate order to some skills, holistic because skills need to be incorporated in context. Word recognition techniques are thus integrated with ideas gleaned from reading. The learner should use acquired…

This resource guide provides a set of assessment instruments to help the adult basic education teacher appropriately place each learner at Level I, Level II, and/or General Education Development Level of instruction. An introduction briefly describes instruments and suggests examples of implementation. A teacher's guide contains general directions…

Intended for administrators and reading teachers, this book deals with the issues about reading that seem to be the most common causes of concern. The topics discussed are the following: a general approach to the teaching of reading, ways to involve parents with reading, a prereading program, the organization of a reading program, the process of…

Minority children need broad experiences basic to literacy development that narrowly conceived curricula cannot provide. Parent interactions and first school encounters can provide daily experiences with print, writing, and stories. The time the teacher takes to involve parents in programs for minority children, by explaining activities that can…

This article reviews research on training phonological awareness in kindergarten and first grade children and describes research-based intervention and assessment activities applicable to classroom and clinical settings. Intervention applications described include categorization activities, phoneme segmentation, and metalinguistic games. (DB)

Based on the concept that readiness for reading is brought about by the nurturing of a child's physical, social, emotional, and intellectual growth, this guidebook presents reading readiness guidelines and carefully planned workshop activities designed to provide a classroom climate conducive to discovery and language development. The first…

College students can read, but they often lack the prereading and postreading skills needed to help them think about and respond to what they read. A three-step plan can help students read and understand the text more fully. The first step entails using measures of fitness to determine: (1) the grade level of the text being considered and how it…

A study examined whether environmental logos could be used as tools for beginning reading instruction. Logos are bold, colorfully adorned symbols featuring printed words in design formats that appear on products and advertisng signs. Subjects were 20 preschool children, half of whom were three and one-half years old, and the rest four and one-half…

Children begin school with some very basic ideas about written language and reading. The first is that of sign and message. That a graphic representation, a "sign," conveys meaning is an early and easy concept for children that stems from their visually attending to print in their environment. The realization that spoken language can be…

A developmental model combining both skills and whole language instruction in four phases is offered for literacy development in children with mild handicaps. The four phases, common to literacy development in all children, move from pretend reading, writing, and spelling, to the transitional stage of fluency at approximately a third grade level.…

The National Early Literacy Panel (NELP) was appointed in 2002 and carried out its work under the auspices of the National Center for Family Literacy (NCFL). NELP's primary goal was to identify interventions, parenting activities, and instructional practices that promote the development of children's early literacy skills. The National Institute…

Readiness activities for entry into first grade are outlined and discussed in this teacher's guide for planning and implementing a relevant curriculum for early childhood. Designed to focus on language, mathematics, science, and social studies, the activities described are divided into two major subject areas: language and mathematics. The…

Intended for parents, as well as school administrators, policymakers, and teachers, this digest discusses resources available for developing children's early literacy. The digest first discusses research indicating the role of parents in early reading experience, then discusses, in general terms, sources for literacy materials for parents,…

Intended for elementary school teachers, this article deals with reading readiness, handwriting, listening skills, and linguistics in the elementary school. The reading readiness section discusses utilizing pictures in teaching, using real objects in teaching, making picture dictionaries, placing labels on objects, developing experience charts,…

Describes a program that associates phonics instruction with children's earliest reading and writing, using the ERIS method to teach sound/letter correspondences and to provide opportunities for writing and reading. (NKA)