The rhetoric of the reading wars has become more than just an armchair academic debate, but is encoded now in the very laws, house and senate bills, and legislative policies of the majority of the states. In turn, these policies are powered by staggering sums of money such as the 90-million-dollar investment of Fulton County, Georgia in a revamp…

Discusses the results of recent research concerning the effects of bilingualism on the development of preschool children and explains how early bilingual education greatly enriches a child's personality cognitively, linguistically, affectively, socially, and morally. Claims it is possible and beneficial to offer young children the opportunity to…

This discussion reviews literature on early bilingualism and early reading in two languages and summarizes a research project aimed at developing the experimental conditions for teaching early bilingual reading in institutional settings. The review notes positive effects of early reading generally and of early bilingual literacy on intellectual…

A study examined the types of reading strategies emergent readers used as they read to make sense of the text. In addition to data obtained for the children's oral readings, a reading strategy classification scheme, Strategy Type Strategy Behavior (STSB), was employed to identify the types of strategies the children were using on this task.…

Parents are urged to provide a superior education for their preschool children by encouraging the development of the first language in the home and by teaching the young child to read in at least one of his languages before going to school. (PMJ)

Research shows that there are many possible positive effects of early bilingual reading upon intellectual growth and general education. An Italian research project dealing with early bilingual literacy is described; the teaching methods used in the project are examined. (RM)