Already well documented for hearing children, schooling's effects on early literacy skills for young students who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) were examined for the first time in the present study. Piecewise growth curve modeling was used to describe 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old students' growth in phonological awareness, letter-word…

Siegler's (1996) overlapping waves model of strategy development applied to reading posits that children use multiple strategies to read words from the earliest stage of reading development, that these strategies coexist over a long period of time, and that experience results in gradual change in the strategies children use and the…

This study investigated the relationships between children's home literacy environments and their early hypotheses about printed words in the year prior to entering school. There were 147 children (70 girls and 77 boys: mean age 57 months, range = 47-66 months, standard deviation = 4.5 months) in the study. Results showed that the children had…

This study demonstrates the impact of an Early Reading First intervention on preschool children's language and literacy development using an ex post facto, causal-comparative research design. The project's professional development model was evaluated to produce a process and outcome evaluation to answer two overarching research questions: (1) What…

During the spring of 1971, a study was made of early reading responses of four, five, and six year olds in a Finnish preschool in order to discover clues to the onset of reading when beginning reading instruction focuses on a phonetic approach and when the language (Finnish) has a highly phonetic regularity. Sixty-two children were tested,…

Investigates the development of word consciousness prior to first grade and the relationship between word consciousness and reading ability. Finds that word consciousness develops through gradual extension and refinement of concepts about and awareness of print, and that a strong relationship exists between word consciousness and beginning reading…

Teachers can help parents foster emerging literacy skills in their preschool children in a way that is developmentally appropriate and fun: by collaborating to develop their child's lifelong love of reading and writing. Incorporating selected teacher-tested activities from the popular book "More Than Letters," this accessible guide…

"Phonological Awareness Training plus Letter Knowledge Training" is a general practice aimed at enhancing young children's phonological awareness, print awareness, and early reading abilities. Phonological awareness, the ability to detect or manipulate the sounds in words independent of meaning, is a precursor to reading. Phonological…

In the Spring of 1967, two groups of about twenty 4-year-olds from varying socioeconomic backgrounds of a small Midwestern community were subjects in a study to design a preschool curriculum. After an IQ test, individual identification tests (word, letter, and numeral) were administered to determine the children's knowledge. Home interviews and…

The development of four-year-old children's knowledge of letters and printed words was studied to determine if preschool children begin reading, and if so, how. A natural hierarchy of knowledge was noted. (MKM)

The purpose of this study was to measure the gains that culturally different 4-year-old children made in reading readiness activities and the acquisition of a sight vocabulary when exposed to an extensive prekindergarten reading intervention program. The subjects of the study were selected initially from a group of volunteer families. The subjects…

When a visually impaired 3-year-old with a tendency toward poking herself in the eye participated with four sighted peers in a reading program as part of the full day special education program, eye-poking behavior was eliminated and the subject was able to read 25 word cards. (CB)

Can and should the preschool child learn to read? To answer this and related questions, a study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of a television program and parental home assistance in teaching reading skills to three-year-old children. For five days a week over a 39-week period, an experimental group watched "Wordland Workshop," a…

Three reading procedures for learning isolated words--whole-word, syllable-blending, and phonics-blending--were examined to determine which was the most effective for preschool children. The six preschool children in the study were divided into two groups to assess the effects of the length and number of different letters in a series of training…

This study investigated the ability of temporal processing measures obtained before school entry to predict early reading development in an unselected sample of 125 children (68 males, 57 females). Visual and auditory temporal order judgment (TOJ) tasks measured at Preschool (mean age 5.36 years) significantly predicted letter and word…