Annotates a number of books that can help teachers demonstrate for young children the importance of reading. (FL)

Discusses the importance of preschool literacy training. (FL)

Calls for reforms in instructional practices and curricula control in literacy programs that disenfranchise five- and six-year-olds who have already served for months or years as active members of the literacy club. Illustrated by one child's early literacy and kindergarten experiences. (BB)

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…

Examines current research concerning various instructional approaches for introducing print related concepts to preschool children. Discusses the nature of preschool literacy skills in light of research findings. Concludes that a whole language approach enhances initial print concepts and develops analytical reading related skills. (MM)

A 9-month naturalistic study of 16 preschoolers' classroom literacy behaviors and a related study of one student's literacy activities at home examined book-related dramatic play as an important part of the children's literacy interactions. Analyses of instances where play was related to the meanings of the books the children had read indicated…

Explains that if the ability to read in the fullest sense can be fostered from infancy in and out of school, children will grow to be the highly literate society of tomorrow. (DF)

Describes the development of an instructional model for training preschool/daycare/kindergarten staff in the area of reading readiness. Concludes that the model was effective. (FL)

Highlighted by Katy's early reading and writing experiences, guidelines to help young children become effective readers and writers are offered to parents and teachers. (BB)

Tests the statement in "Becoming a Nation of Readers" that kindergartners can name an average of 14 letters. Finds that a more realistic distribution is bi-modal in that most kindergartners know 8 or fewer letters, and only a few can name more than 20 letters. (RS)

Parents are not recommended to teach their preschoolers to read. Although some children learn to read before school, forcing a child to read can have many damaging effects. Instead, parents are encouraged to talk to their child, to develop important reading readiness skills in their child, and to build their child's background of experiences. (TM)

Presents case study of 40-month-old girl with word reading age of 8.5 years, focusing on her phoneme awareness, productive spelling, and phonological recoding. Concludes that her phonological recoding was an implicit process based on sublexical relations induced from her lexical representations rather than explicitly taught letter-sound…

Attendance in U.S. preschools has risen substantially in recent decades, but gaps in enrollment between children from advantaged and disadvantaged families remain. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999, we analyze the effect of participation in child care and early education on children's school…

Unproven beliefs about the process of reading and its instruction and about the effects of maturation and social structure on learning have obscured the question of what children know about how to read. An alternate conceptualization proposes that to learn to read children must obtain experience in three reading contexts: the use of print and its…

To gain additional information about how young children actually develop and use literacy before entering school, four young children were studied indepth by means of family questionnaires, reading age tests, diagnostic subskill tests, and miscue analysis. Five months later, the children were again tested to see if reading age had increased and if…