A practicum was developed which implemented an alternative to using a standard reading textbook, by using the newspaper as a learning tool to supplement the existing reading program over a 12-week period in a first grade class. The program centered around a collection of techniques and strategies used to motivate and increase young children's…

The 1988-89 Compensatory Language Experiences and Reading--Reading Recovery (CLEAR-RR) Program of the Columbus, Ohio, public schools was implemented to provide early intervention to 283 underachieving first-grade pupils who appeared unlikely to learn to read successfully without intensive instruction. The program's two major goals were to develop…

This book, published in 1941, is a collection of articles that emphasize the value of teaching the "tool" or basic skills: reading, elementary mathematics, language arts, "and their subdivisions." The book emphasizes the value of using the environment and experiences of rural children in teaching these subjects. Chapter 1…

A study demonstrated that young children who have difficulty with phonics can be taught to read through other methods, that phonics is only one of the many useful strategies that a child can employ, and that many contextual strategies are easier to learn and more reliable than phonics. A case study was conducted during an intervention with a young…

A child's success in learning to read in the first grade appears to be the best predictor of his or her ultimate success in schooling as well as all of the events and outcomes that correlate with that. Yet, across the research literature reviewed for a recent book, "Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning about Print," children's…

Reported are the findings of a legislatively mandated study on reducing certain class sizes of grades kindergarten through three to an optimum pupil-teacher ratio for Minnesota's schools. This report, after defining terms, briefly surveys variables affected by class size, such as teaching processes and classroom climate. Research is subsequently…

Noting that children in literate societies all learn the sound-symbol relationships of their languages but that orthographies, sound-symbol relationships, and societal attitudes toward literacy differ, the essays in this book explore both the universal and the culturally constrained aspects of the process of learning to read. Following an…

A study was conducted to explore first grade students' conceptions of reading and writing, and how those conceptions may be associated with and influenced by the type of reading instruction they receive. The study was conducted in three separate classrooms, each based upon theoretically different models of literacy learning: (1) a content-centered…

While previous studies have investigated children's awareness of two units within words--syllables and phonemes, there is experimental evidence that children are also aware of intrasyllabic units (units intermediate in size between the syllable and the phoneme), and that these units may be useful for teaching phonological awareness and reading.…

To compare the effect of remedial reading instruction over time on reading error patterns of at risk readers further classified as "learning disabled" (LD) with non-LD failing readers, a study examined 60 randomly selected children from a population of low achieving first graders in urban, suburban, and rural elementary schools…

A study investigated children's ability to understand the use of deictic terms in oral and written language. The three deictic categories examined were pronouns (I, you), locatives (this, here), and motion verbs (come, go). Three groups of 24 second grade students completed an oral language task, a written language task, and a picture selection…

A study compared two groups of failing first grade readers in the Reading Recovery program to determine what effect this type of instruction had over time on their reading patterns. Subjects, 60 failing first grade readers, 30 learning disabled (LD) children and 30 non-LD children, were randomly selected from urban, suburban, and rural elementary…

The relationship of the amount of classroom time devoted to reading instruction, the number of reading related activities, and teacher instruction feedback to reading achievement at the end of kindergarten was investigated for a sample of approximately 300 children in 14 kindergarten classrooms at three schools. Based on nine rounds of full-day…

The classroom behaviors recorded during three second grade reading lessons provide suitable evidence for comparing the relative merits of using narrative observations versus videotapes as data collection techniques. The comparative analysis illustrates the detail and precision of videotape. Primarily, videotape gives a true picture of linear time,…

The Sault Ste. Marie (Michigan) Area Public Schools' Compensatory Education Division undertook a 2-year process evaluation of the effectiveness of an early intervention strategy for low reading readiness kindergarten children enrolled in Title I programs. The first year of the evaluation sought to determine whether children exposed to this…