Compares and describes written language environments of kindergarten children in Scandinavia, Great Britain, and the United States. Finds a lack of written language in Scandinavian kindergartens, writing in the context of interactive play in Great Britain, and either academic writing instruction or developmentally appropriate print-rich…

Discusses efforts at teaching children in kindergarten how to write, indicating that emergent readers can indeed write with scribbles, random letters, numerals, and sometimes words. Discusses their dictation, journal content, writing stages, and developmental trends. (HTH)

Describes how kindergarten children use invented spelling to rewrite Mother Goose nursery rhymes, indicating the phoneme grapheme system the children perceived from spoken language. (HTH)

Explored young children's concepts of the functions of writing in community contexts. Twenty kindergarten children responded to three videotaped vignettes depicting people writing in community settings. The children were able to identify a range of writing functions. They also valued writing and described the negative consequences likely to occur…

A kindergarten teacher tested her theory that her students could progress beyond learning a letter a week by creating a project to introduce students to letter names and sounds. By using interactive writing and key words, she encouraged students to write. In the process, they learned alphabet letters and sounds. (Author/SM)

Examines kindergarten and first-grade children's classifications and spellings and differences in their classifications of sounds from those of adults. In addition to these spelling, phoneme recognition, and phoneme deletion tasks, each child took the reading and spelling subtests of the Wide Range Achievement Test. (AS)

A year-long, quasi-experimental study investigated the comparative effects of a whole language approach and a code emphasis approach upon the emergent literacy of 53 girls in two kindergarten classes in an all girls' parochial school in the Northeast. Subjects in the experimental class received instruction in Holdaway's Shared Book Experience…

This report describes an early intervention program to elicit emergent literacy skills in Potentially English Proficient kindergarten students. The school is located in a suburb of a large city near a naval base. The problem, lack of literacy readiness skills, was documented with a battery of tests given prior to entrance in kindergarten and the…

The validity of recent research concerning invented spelling, the developmental stages in children's writing, and whether children will attempt writing before reading and continue writing while learning to read were examined. Five developmental stages in spelling have been identified: (1) the precommunicative stage, involving the use of random…

A study of kindergarten children used three language-eliciting situations to obtain stories. The stories were compared for fluency, vocabulary, descriptive nature, and story structure. Results indicated that stories elicited without the use of a prop were more fluent and reflected a more sophisticated story structure than those elicited by a…

Contrasts, through portraits of five young writers, the writing strategies of children used at home and in a kindergarten writing center that stressed a formal language arts program. Argues that the teacher's approach to writing instruction and the child's writing strategies must be compatible to ensure independent writers. (HTH)

An assistant principal for elementary instruction implemented a 10-week practicum intervention designed to use teacher in-service sessions to encourage the provision of daily opportunities for journal writing to kindergartners and first graders. In-service sessions offered: (1) an overview of highlights of related research; (2) approaches to the…

A project developed a program for improving writing readiness skills. The targeted population consisted of 37 kindergarten students in an upper middle class southwest Chicago (Illinois) suburb. The need for writing readiness skills was documented through writing observation checklists, anecdotal records, writing portfolios, and diagnostic tests.…

Presenting a longitudinal study of factors influencing the text-forming strategies children employ in early stages of writing development, this report focuses on the differences between children's oral and written texts and the development of writing ability. The first two chapters present cohesion results, with the first chapter providing…

This book was written to help parents understand and enhance their children's development in mathematics and language. The first section sets forth basic learning goals in mathematics and language for preschool and kindergarten children and students in the first and second grades. The second section provides approximately 100 language and math…