This investigation explored the relationship between educator preparation programs and teachers' perceptions of instructional readiness in foundational literacy skills. This study also examined the impact that early childhood, elementary, and specialty endorsement education programs of study, reading methods courses, and clinical field experiences…

Teachers' assumptions about teaching and learning have a critical impact on pedagogical practices. This study was conducted to investigate the perceptions of early childhood educators regarding children's acquisition of literacy in an attempt to gain a picture of current instructional practices. Prekindergarten through second grade teachers…

This reader-friendly text examines the key foundational studies in early literacy. It addresses such essential questions as how research informs current practices and where the field still needs to go to provide the best learning opportunities for all children. Each chapter describes the methods and findings of one to five seminal studies,…

This study compared actual and recommended practices in reading readiness programs in kindergartens and first grades of New York State public schools as reported by classroom teachers and as advocated by chairmen of departments of early childhood and elementary education in the 54 teacher-training institutions in New York State offering…

A number of criticisms have been made of currently available standardized pre-reading test materials in terms of their appropriateness for administration to urban children, their standardization, their content, and their required testing procedures. This new pre-reading skills battery has been designed as an urban oriented testing instrument to…

Describes a project that focused on identifying beginning first grade children with prereading deficits and which created a diagnostic-prescriptive program at the beginning of the first grade that changed potential failure in first grade into a true success story. (Author/DN)

Examines the factorial structure underlying different task types within the domain of phonological awareness. Tests, in study 1, 128 preschoolers without formal reading instruction, giving them tasks in rhyme recognition, syllable counting, initial phoneme matching and deletion, phoneme blending, and phoneme counting. Replicates structural…

Two studies were conducted to investigate the predictive validity of prekindergarten and pre-grade 1 screening checklists. In the first study, all 83 students registering for kindergarten at an elementary school were administered Austin and Lafferty's prekindergarten checklist. Toward the end of the school year, the children were administered the…

The purpose of this study was to determine if the relationships among alphabet skills, auditory discrimination, and visual discrimination for five-year-olds prior to kindergarten were similar to those found in studies of subskills of first grade children. The sample consisted of 23 middle class nursery school children between the ages of 5.1 and…

Bridge-to-Reading is a comprehensive, easy-to-implement readiness curriculum (for ages 2 1/2 -- 6) based on the premise that young children learn language and prereading skills most easily by "doing" and then learning and using the words that explain their experiences. Each section in the series is presented in a separate notebook containing…

This study compared reading readiness profiles of 232 first graders with the reported norms of a decade ago. It is suggested that children are currently entering first grade with greater competencies in understanding language, percieving visual similarities and differences, and comprehending basic number concepts than was the case a decade ago.…

This dissertation report describes a 3-year study which compared the effectiveness of full-day kindergarten sessions (the experimental condition) and half-day sessions (the control condition) in promoting academic achievement. A group of 20 5-year-olds was assigned to each condition; each group contained equal numbers of culturally disadvantaged,…

Intended for practitioners, this comprehensive, year-long reading readiness curriculum is for use with 2 1/2 -- 6-year-old children. Readiness skills are taught through other subjects appropriate for young children. A major objective of the curriculum is to establish a positive motivational framework for reading instruction, based on early…

Bridge-to-Reading is a comprehensive, year-long reading readiness curriculum for use with 2 1/2 -- 6-year-old children. It teaches readiness skills through other subjects that are appropriate for young children. A major objective of the curriculum is to establish a positive motivational framework for reading instruction, based on early learning…

"Science" is the fifth manual in the Bridge-to-Reading series, a comprehensive, year-long reading readiness curriculum for use with 2 1/2 -- 6-year-old children. Developed to help teachers and child caregivers, the curriculum teaches readiness skills through other subjects that are appropriate for young children. A major objective of the…