Language is one of the most important drivers of children's socialization and development of a sense of belonging within their school, community, and culture. For bilingual and multicultural children in particular, language plays a critical role in the development of their identity. If emergent language learners do not feel confident in their…

How does literacy develop in children's early years, and what programs or practices promote adequate literacy for all children? These are the questions Catherine Snow and Timothy Matthews tackle in this article. Fundamental literacy skills can be grouped into two categories, Snow and Matthews write. The first category is "constrained"…

The lexical decision task is probably the most common laboratory visual word identification task together with the naming task. In the usual setup, participants need to press the "yes" button when the stimulus is a word and the "no" button when the stimulus is not a word. A number of studies have employed this task with developing readers;…

Playing the Play describes the experiences of a storyteller and teacher of literature who created a literature-based literacy program at Concourse House, a homeless shelter in Bronx, New York, for women and their young children. This program is based on the belief that pleasure is the primary reason children want to learn to read, and that where…

Background: This is the fourth formal report describing the efficacy of the full-day, every day kindergarten program in the St. James School Division which was initiated in one school located in an economically-disadvantaged neighborhood in the 1997-1998 school year. The success of this undertaking led to the extension of the program in 1998-1999,…