Describes inadequate home literacy experiences of three children, noting that the home expects the school to educate the child and the school expects certain prerequisites of the home, but neither is aware of the other's expectations. Exhorts schools and teachers to communicate better the parents' role in early literacy education. (HTH)

To study the emergence of literacy during the preschool years, a handwritten diary, maintained on a day to day basis, focused on one child, David, from ages two and a half to four and a half. One facet of the study concentrated on his literary language--his incorporation of written texts (children's literature) into his language and background of…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between kindergarten children's preschool experiences and their reading readiness skills. A sample of 42 children, randomly selected from a population of incoming kindergarten students at an upstate New York elementary school, was studied. Prior to entering kindergarten, interviews…

A study originally involving 56 children from four schools was undertaken to observe the development of children's oral language and concepts of print during the kindergarten year using the Record of Oral Language (ROL) and the Concepts about Print (Sand) tests. In addition, the Sand test was administered early in the first grade to the available…

In an effort to teach all children to read as early as possible, educators are failing to teach the basic prerequisites. A model identifies the basic prerequisites for the development of reading skills in young children and suggests a hierarchy of goal acquisitions. The prerequisites are: (1) language development and verbal meaning, (2) perceptual…

Determination of the effectiveness of visual perceptual training upon word recognition and subsequent reading achievement of the culturally disadvantaged first grader was this study's goal. Forty-eight pupils in two sections of the first grade of an elementary school in Louisiana tested the hypotheses that no difference would be revealed in the…

The Pre-Kindergarten Program was established as a part of the Language Development Program (funded under Title I of the 1965 Elementary Secondary Education Act) which is intended to increase the language facility of low income Columbus children. The pre-kindergarten child should leave the program feeling important and unique and should have gained…

Contends that becoming literate involves the socialization of attention. Discusses two modes of socialization, revealing and telling. Concludes that the final evaluation of any language theory is relevance to classroom practice. (CFR)

A study used the "Emergent Reading Ability Judgments for Favorite Storybooks" (ERAJFS) scale to provide an informative description of children's emergent reading behaviors during a school year. Subjects, children ranging in age from two and one half years to five years who were enrolled in a day care center classroom, took part in two…

When used diagnostically at the readiness level, language-experience becomes an effective way to meet individual differences and to differentiate instruction in a group setting. For a 5- or 6-year old, school should be an exciting, happy, purposeful place, and language-experience lends itself well to such a setting. The first steps are to…

Focusing on how children learn to read in a language they have previously only spoken, this book illustrates the skill theory of reading development, which encompasses both new perceptual processes and modified but familiar integrative cognitive processes of language comprehension. The chapters discuss the following aspects of learning to read:…

A study examined the interrelationship among print-related skills developed prior to formal reading instruction and social class differences in these skills in 33 middle-class and working-class children attending one of two high quality, reading-oriented kindergarten classes. Two hypotheses were generated: (1) that correlations would emerge among…

Fourteen examples of "literacy events" in the reading development of one preschool-age boy are described by the boy's mother, a parent-researcher who conducted a case study of her son's interaction with his literate home environment. Field notes were kept in a household diary, and audiotapes were made of the child's storytelling and…

Forty-eight children, equally divided among three-, four-, and five-year-old groups, were subjects in a study that explored the development and interrelationships among several facets of writing knowledge and reading readiness skills. Three categories of tasks were administered: knowledge of functions, knowledge of forms, and reading readiness…

An ESEA Title III language development program, originating in Mifflinburg, Pennsylvania, is presented in 60 twenty-minute lessons to help prepare preschoolers for the reading experience. Four areas of language usage and reading readiness are stressed--auditory discrimination or phonology, letter discrimination, stylistics, and morphology,…