Though temporal reasoning is a key factor for text comprehension, existing proposals for visualizing temporal information and temporal connectives proves to be inadequate for children, not only for their levels of abstraction and detail, but also because they rely on pre-existing mental models of time and temporal connectives, while in the case of…

These are exciting and challenging times for English language curriculum development for school-age learners. The global reach of English has spurred a rethinking of its role in education and, consequently, a rethinking of how to teach it. The accounts in this volume represent differences in educational systems, language teaching traditions,…

The thematic network "Early Literacy in Context" is funded by the European Commission to connect four research projects exploring innovative practice in literacy teaching in the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, and Greece. This paper, written by two of the network's four members, explores the different notions of autonomy in early literacy…

Teaching practices in Italy, where teachers combine three different methods for teaching reading, may provide insight into ways to improve methodologies in the United States. The first method is the natural method, which, unlike American methods, teaches reading and writing simultaneously with the emphasis on writing. The teacher writes as…

Traces the history of the early reading movement in Italy and relates the experiences of parent-guided reading with preschool children and teacher-guided reading with kindergarten children. Recent studies on early reading and research in the area of early bilingual reading is discussed. (CFM)

Describes a reading course offered to the first-year economics majors studying English at La Sapienza University in Rome, Italy. The reading materials were taken from authentic texts, journals, and articles about economics from English language publications. Sample passages with pre-reading and post-reading exercises are included. (CFM)

Research shows that there are many possible positive effects of early bilingual reading upon intellectual growth and general education. An Italian research project dealing with early bilingual literacy is described; the teaching methods used in the project are examined. (RM)