In order to document the self-directed, spontaneous growth in literary output of a six-year-old child, her writings during a one month period were collected and compiled. It was discovered that the child used writing to organize knowledge about the environment and the operations of print, to maintain personal relations, to establish impersonal or…

Often regarding the "great books" as too difficult for elementary school age children to comprehend, teachers have given students reading assignments that are less than challenging and have risked causing them to dislike reading because it is relatively uninteresting. However, it is possible to expose very young children to works such as…

This study investigated children's preference and comprehension responses to stories in which both male and female main characters were represented in traditional and nontraditional roles, and stories in which only the opposite sex main characters were portrayed in those roles. A total of 218 girls and 169 boys from grades five and six (all with…

This study examined relations between mothers' and fathers' behavior and characteristics, and individual differences in masculine and feminine activities and interests of their early school-aged children. Subjects were 57 intact families with an eldest child aged 6 to 7 years for a total of 29 boys and 28 girls. Data collection involved four…

A study assessed the role of various mass media in the day-to-day lives of school-aged children. Research questions dealt with the nature of children's media experiences at home, how use of media impacts school activities, the social context of media use, interior responses to different media, and whether gender or socioeconomic differences among…

The 10 papers in this collection focus on library education and research: (1) "Image of Library" (V. D. Stelmakh, USSR); (2) "The Study of Reading Activity in the Context of Australian Libraries" (G. G. Allen & F. C. A. Exon, Australia); (3) "Attitudes to Children's Reading in Singapore" (Tzu Pheng Lee,…

This study sought to: (1) identify and describe the interest patterns of fourth and fifth grade children as they pertain to the content and form of the short art film, based on preferences expressed by the children themselves after actually viewing the films; (2) compare the interest patterns of children according to sex and race/socioeconomic…

Since people's mental makeup is, to a certain extent, based on what they have read and how it has been incorporated into their lives, it is not surprising that considerable attention is paid to what children read. As a consequence, children's books tend to be highly moralistic. Many realistic books today attempt to teach children how to cope with…

The document presents a report on the role and status of arts education in a national sample of 13 elementary schools. It focuses on how conditions of elementary schooling affect arts programs, whether arts education is an important part of the total educational experience, and the degree to which arts education furthers creativity and…

Variables related to children's interest in and play experiences with fire and fire-producing materials were explored in this study. Information for the study was obtained from samples of public school children and their parents. The samples were drawn from the communities of Oakland and Hayward, California, and included 70 boys and 69 girls and…

Four of the 17 papers in this collection focus on library services for children; the remaining 12 are concerned with public libraries. The papers on children's libraries appear first on this list: (1) "A Study of Integrated Services" (Selma K. Richardson, United States); (2) "Partnership and Prosper: A Broader View of Children's…

The impact of informal learning on young children in the course of their play activities is discussed. A major objective is to emphasize that informal learning can help lay the base for multiculturalism in elementary education. It enables children from different cultural backgrounds to relate to and understand each other through play activities…

This article reports a study in which a sample of 89 White and 34 Spanish-language heritage children from ages 2 1/2 to 6 1/2 from the lower- and middle-classes responded to two cognitive measures (classification skill and gender knowledge), three verbal sex-typing measures (occupations, toys, and peer behaviors), and a behavioral sex-typing…

Discusses the first plane of development in the context of language work of the age 3-6 classroom. Examines the connections between spoken and written language and explains how literary images reflected in prose and poetry all contribute to a child's development as a reader and a writer. (TJQ)

The wealth of information gleaned from reading research both past and present needs to be applied to a practical eclectic reading methodology. First, an emergent instruction model needs to be created that takes into account the immediate interests and needs of the learner. This model should recognize that learning is a transaction, with the…