Close to one billion people in the world do not have basic literacy skills. A key challenge is reaching children in the midst of circumstances that make a traditional school-based approach impractical. This chapter will describe a cross-disciplinary, mobile technology approach to literacy education. The Curious Learning approach distributes…

What logic should educators use in choosing words for students to learn to spell? Common sense provides the answer: students should learn to spell the words they use in writing. What these words are has been a subject of concern since the beginning of this century. Dozens of word frequency lists have been developed over the years, based primarily…

Forty-five phonic generalizations were applied to 5,431 words selected from six spelling programs. Also examined was the grade level at which each generalization was introduced; and the applicability of phonic generalizations to the spelling vocabulary was compared to the applicability of the generalizations to reading vocabularies as determined…

Elementary students learned about the potential and problems inherent in newspaper and television coverage. Here they developed insight and knowledge about what each medium can offer and what each can do better or differently. (Author/RK)

After examining how Dolch developed his list of 220 basic sight words and identifying major criticisms of this list, the author reports two studies undertaken to revise the Dolch list. Five advantages of the revised Dolch list over the original are identified and discussed. The revised list is included. (Editor/SJL)

Basic words have been defined as those from which other words can be derived semantically. The assumption underlying the instructional utility of a list of basic words is that a knowledge of them would provide a key to the understanding of a much larger set of related words. Although it has been shown that there are far too many basic words in the…

Examines the original validity of the 220-word Dolch Basic Sight Vocabulary, compiled in 1936, and considers whether it accounts for a large percentage of words in current reading usage. (BF)

The study involving 46 learning disabled children (mean age eight years) was designed to determine the effects of training in paradigmatic language structures on the reading process of Ss. Findings lent support for the semantic and syntactic relativity of words and for the meaning inherent in the nucleus of key verbal elements linking ideas to one…

This booklet discusses a procedure to assist students experiencing difficulty in learning the "Dolch Basic Sight Vocabulary of 220 Words" and rearranges a list of 220 words to make it easier for students to learn. The procedure discussed in the booklet is based on the "word family" approach, in which words like "all call,…

A study was conducted to answer the question, "What are the basic words in a list of words kindergarten through sixth grade students will frequently encounter in their reading?" The study was limited to the words the students would encounter in their textbooks (including basals). A corpus of 7,230 words was then analyzed by two raters to…

These activities are intended to acquaint elementary students with the voting process. Students in grades K-4 are introduced to vocabulary concerning voting through games and classroom discussions. A voting area is simulated in the classroom. Students are given the opportunity to vote for their favorite dog, bird, and wild animal. So that they can…

The Reading-Spelling Vocabulary Program (RSVP) is a list of 900 words of highest frequency selected from 14 previous studies of words in print, spoken vocabulary, and children's and adults' handwriting. The words are divided into four levels and 60 lessons of 15 words each. When a sample test was constructed and administered to 266 elementary…

The Harris-Jacobson Basic Elementary Reading vocabularies contain 7,613 words found to be basic in 14 series of textbooks for grades 1 through 6. They include a core list, an additional list, a technical vocabulary, and a total alphabetical list. Comparisons with the Dale list and the Botel list show very high degrees of overlapping with the…