Two case studies were conducted that both involved teaching three-year-olds to read. In Study A, one three-year-old child was provided reading training over 13 months, concomitant with a background program of speech, language, and intellectual stimulation. In Study B, four three-year-old children were provided reading training over 2 months. A…

The purpose of this study was to determine the part of a word upon which first and fifth graders depend most in word recognition and to determine whether any change occurs between grades one and five. Fifty-six first grade students and sixty-three fifth graders were tested. The children individually read sixty words from flash cards presented by…

This study investigated the developmental relationships between a battery of cognitive tasks--including Piagetian operations of conservation, classification, and seriation--and early reading achievement. Subjects were 128 kindergarten through third-grade students at a suburban elementary school. They were administered a battery of cognitive tests…

To gain additional information about how young children actually develop and use literacy before entering school, four young children were studied indepth by means of family questionnaires, reading age tests, diagnostic subskill tests, and miscue analysis. Five months later, the children were again tested to see if reading age had increased and if…

After a review of the research related to the feasibility of initiating reading instruction before first grade, kindergarten curriculum guides from l3 large cities were studied and analyzed. These analyses indicated a trend toward less postponement of reading instruction, though reading readiness still tended to be defined in terms of oral…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether boys read to by their fathers for the six-month period immediately preceding entrance into first grade would score significantly higher on predictor instruments for first-grade reading achievement when compared with boys read to by their mothers or boys in an unplanned situation for the same…

Three groups of twenty-five children in fourth-grade reading classes were selected for this study. The subjects in class one received plastic tokens for desirable reading responses. The tokens were exchanged for release time from the classroom while reading instruction was in progress. The subjects in class two also received tokens for desirable…

The purpose of this study was to measure the gains that culturally different 4-year-old children made in reading readiness activities and the acquisition of a sight vocabulary when exposed to an extensive prekindergarten reading intervention program. The subjects of the study were selected initially from a group of volunteer families. The subjects…

This study describes certain characteristics of early readers, with emphasis on their accomplishments on eight Piagetian tasks. The early readers were defined as those children who were between four and six years old, who could read at the pre-primer level or higher, and who had not attended elementary school. The population of the study consisted…

Three psycho-social variables, identified as modeling influences of children's fathers, children's sex-typing of reading, and their judgmental conformity were investigated as possible correlates of reading achievement in grades one, two, and three. The subjects were 226 children from the first, second and third grades, all of whom came from…

A self-instructional unit in early reading designed for community college child care students is presented in this paper along with information about the development of the unit. Introductory chapters discuss the controversy about teaching young children to read, the systems approach used in developing the unit, and the steps followed in preparing…