The authors emphasize the importance of cultivating autonomous motivation for literacy in early childhood by supporting students' basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness while building foundational skills. Additionally, the authors highlight four key findings specific to early childhood (pre-K-2) literacy development:…

To achieve academically, young children need a strong foundation in literacy. Alphabet knowledge is one aspect of early literacy. This article presents the importance of and the components of alphabet knowledge. An exploratory study in which prekindergarten and kindergarten teachers read aloud three different alphabet books to their students in a…

Describes an action research project carried out by a kindergarten teacher as she incorporated phonemic awareness activities into the daily classroom routine. Discusses classroom activities, how she developed data collection processes, and how her data analysis showed systematic student growth in literacy and enthusiasm. (SR)

Argues that phonemic awareness instruction should be a thoughtful, conscious component of early literacy programs (without replacing other crucial areas of instruction). Discusses what phonemic awareness is and how it differs from auditory discrimination, phonetics, or phonics. Describes what phonemic awareness instruction looks like in the…

Reviews research on the question of how to best teach letter-sound correspondences in beginning reading instruction. Describes a new, child-friendly, research-based way of teaching letter-sound correspondences to English- and Spanish-speaking children, which is not only explicit, systematic, and extensive, but also context embedded and meaningful.…

Describes letterbox lessons in which children learn the alphabetic code, spelling words by placing letters in boxes that show the number of phonemes in words, and later reading what they have spelled. Discusses materials, how to teach a letterbox lesson, and effectiveness of these lessons. (SR)

The author asserts that "Children benefit when teachers and parents reinforce the same concepts and ideas. For this to happen, teachers and parents must have some knowledge of what happens in the classroom and what happens at home that support reading acquisition." In this article, the author describes several strategies that teachers can share…

Describes how one kindergarten teacher developed self-monitoring and searching behaviors in her class of beginning readers. Describes an array of reading and writing activities that advanced students' phonemic awareness, letter-sound knowledge, and facility with reading and writing--learning that was proudly constructed with ownership shared…

Offers a 69-item list of children's books published in 1996 or 1997 that are suitable for kindergarten and first-grade children in helping them develop phonemic awareness. Offers a letter to parents that describes some specific activities they can do at home that highlight phonemic awareness. Offers a parents' phonemic awareness observation…