Many South African children struggle in acquiring literacy and reading skills. It seems as if caregivers may be missing an important aspect in guiding children's emergent reading development. The question is whether there are underlying concepts needed for emergent literacy and the acquisition of reading skills. The nature of the reading process…

Using classical and quantile regression analyses, we investigated whether predictor variables for early reading comprehension differed depending on language background and ability level in a mixed group of 161 monolingual (L1) and bilingual (L2) children in second grade (6--8 years). Although L2 readers scored lower on oral language skills and…

"Headsprout Early Reading"[TM] is an Internet-based supplemental early literacy curriculum consisting of forty 20-minute animated episodes that are designed to teach phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. The program adapts to a child's responses, providing additional instruction and review if a child does…

Young children who are born deaf or hard of hearing are at risk for language and emergent literacy challenges. Emergent literacy skills play a significant role in early reading abilities for typically developing children with hearing. The purpose of this article is to (a) provide an overview of the research relating to oral language and emerging…

The purpose of this research-to-practice article is to describe the literacy and oral language professional development (PD) model that took place in a 3-year Early Reading First project in 9 Head Start and community-based school classrooms. Through our data-driven PD model, we provided 55 hr of training workshops for all classroom teaching staff…

Much has been made by early childhood educators about the importance of activities that foster early reading--and deservedly so--but studies show that reading and writing are skills that children develop simultaneously. Early reading is supported and improved by early writing. Young children need reading to help them learn about writing, and they…

This article explores aspects of early language and literacy that may predict later literacy development. It explores a range of assessment procedures used for oral language, vocabulary, sentence structure and phonology and early reading and writing. The article then describes a small-scale study which highlights the disconnections between the…

The purpose of this study was to explore the connections between young children's oral language vocabulary and children's reading of written language in beginning reading books. Oral language has been viewed as the foundation for emergent reading development as it provides the semantic base, syntactic base and phonological base for successfully…

This meta-analysis examines to what extent interactive storybook reading stimulates two pillars of learning to read: vocabulary and print knowledge. The authors quantitatively reviewed 31 (quasi) experiments (n = 2,049 children) in which educators were trained to encourage children to be actively involved before, during, and after joint book…

"Let's Begin with the Letter People"[R] is an early education curriculum that uses thematic units to develop children's language and literacy skills. A major focus is phonological awareness, including rhyming, word play, alliteration, and segmentation. Children are encouraged to learn as individuals, in small groups, and in a whole-class…

"Curiosity Corner" is an early childhood curriculum emphasizing children's language and literacy skills. It comprises two sets of 38 weekly thematic units--one for three-year-olds and one for four-year-olds. Program staff conduct daily lessons using sequential daily activities. One study of "Curiosity Corner" meets the What…

"Ready, Set, Leap!"[R] is a preschool curriculum that focuses on early reading skills, such as phonemic awareness, letter knowledge, and letter-sound correspondence, using multisensory technology that incorporates touch, sight, and sound. Teachers may adopt either a theme-based or a literature-based teaching approach, and for each…

Among risk factors associated with reading difficulties, poverty and underdeveloped oral language skills can be particularly detrimental to reading success. The City Early Reading First (CERF) project implemented a comprehensive curriculum, professional development, intensive mentoring, and home supports to enhance children's language, literacy,…

"Interactive Shared Book Reading" is a general practice that adults may use when reading with children and is intended to enhance young children's language and literacy skills. Typically, "Interactive Shared Book Reading" involves an adult reading a book to a child or a small group of children and using a variety of techniques…

This article comments on the discussion of S. A. Storch and G. J. Whitehurst's literacy development model in the article by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Early Child Care Research Network (ECCRN). Specifically, this comment focuses on concerns raised by the NICHD ECCRN that Storch and Whitehurst's model does…