Describes several techniques that enable parents to prepare their preschool children for the actual process of learning how to read that they will encounter when they enter school. (FL)

Concludes that potential users of the Clymer-Barrett Readiness Test should exercise caution in drawing inferences or conclusions about children on the basis of anything other than raw score data associated with the measure. (FL)

Examines the history of preschool reading instruction, what researchers recommend, and what is actually happening in preschools, then asks whether reading should be taught to young children. (FL)

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)

Discusses the importance of preschool literacy training. (FL)

Early reading instruction is important for all children, but especially for the disadvantaged, because the decision not to expose them to reading at an early age may result in an unrecoverable loss of intellectual potential. Reading readiness as an approach may exile children from literacy permanently because it is an abstract and alien process…

Unproven beliefs about the process of reading and its instruction and about the effects of maturation and social structure on learning have obscured the question of what children know about how to read. An alternate conceptualization proposes that to learn to read children must obtain experience in three reading contexts: the use of print and its…

Explores how children become oriented to literacy and how their perceptions of the purpose of print develop as they move toward becoming more fluent users of print. (DF)

Relates the belief that "shared reading" using big books will provide children with a meaningful introductin to reading. (DF)

The first of a series providing reviews, syntheses (empirical and rhetorical), and reports of reading research, the chapters in this volume treat the question, "What does a child have to know (or be able to do) in order to learn to read?" The book begins with an in-depth logical analysis in historical perspective of the concept of reading…

Early reading for deaf and hearing-impaired children using the natural reading method inspired by Doman is advocated. The Doman method is described. What educational research on deaf and hearing-impaired children says concerning the process of reading acquisition is discussed. (RM)

This discussion of methods, experiences, and theory provides educators and parents with an approach to learning to read that emphasizes learning to think and becoming a functional reader who can enjoy using this skill throughout life. Included are simple, inexpensive suggestions for improving reading, such as more attention to regular school…

Some children become capable readers and writers before ever attending school and without exposure to formal instruction. This phenomenon--sometimes referred to as natural literacy development--is not, in the strictest sense, natural; as the adult presents much of the literacy environment to the child in a socialized, mediated form, teaching is…

Suggests that remedial reading teachers deemphasize skill building in favor of reading aloud to children, replicating the experience of children raised in a book-reading family. (AEA)

Reading to young children offers them many benefits including a sense of security which comes from physical closeness to an adult. In addition, the child perceives the format of print, begins to assimilate the basics of story construction, develops a prior knowledge base which is an essential ingredient of comprehension, and receives the message…