For the last several days, Janet had been anxious about her upcoming parent-teacher conference with Sam, 18-month-old Abby's father. Sam had recently brought in alphabet flash cards because he wants Abby to learn to read. Janet completely understood Sam's desire to support his daughter's early language skills, but she was not comfortable with the…

Assesses the current state of knowledge concerning children's perception and the processes of learning to read. Considers research studies and the reasons for their success or failure. (DR)

Brief discussion of readiness experiences including listening, asking questions, viewing interesting things, and writing about class experiences. (BRT)

Discusses results of a survey of kindergarten teachers on the question of early reading instruction in kindergarten classrooms in the state of Virginia. (CS)

Expresses a joint statement of concerns about present practices in pre-first grade reading instruction and makes recommendations for improvement. Guidelines and recommendations are the result of a collaboration among six national organizations. (KS)

The model delineates a structure for summarizing the dimensions of a developmentally oriented prereading program. The structure provides a guide for planning the curriculum so that parents and teachers can arrange experiences that will help children develop higher levels of representation and more complex language structures, and extend their…

Describes recommended procedures for assessing reading readiness and the teaching of beginning reading for three- and four-year-old children. (Author/MP)

A reading corner allows children to have a space that offers opportunities for reading. Reading corner activities that children undertake to find challenges are discussed. Group reading activities and their benefits are considered. (DG)

Suggests methods and materials for improving the perception abilities of young children. (NH)

Discusses some of the common explanations for the effects of story reading at home upon children's later reading achievement, and offers an alternative explanation along with implications for classroom practices. (CM)

Describes the approach to pre-reading and reading instruction used at the Carnegie-Mellon Children's School. (ED)

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)

Argues that phonemic awareness in young readers may be knowledge that is constructed in the unique situation of trying to match speech to an alphabetic orthography. Stages of learning about print, teaching children about written language, and the roles of alphabet recognition and perceptual-motor skills in learning to read are discussed.…

This discussion of the role of structured guidance in facilitating cognitive development presents the author's point of view regarding a current issue in early childhood education. (WY)

Reviews 15 children's books in Spanish. Titles reviewed include: "Perro y gato [Dog and Cat]" (Ricardo Alcantara); "Baldomero va a la escuela [Baldomero goes to School]" (Alain Broutin); "Duerme bien, pequeno oso [Sleep well, Little Bear]" (Quint Buchholz); "El mas bonito de todos los regales del mundo [The Most Beautiful Gift in the World]…