Parents have a significant role in preparing their children to read; they can help shape and strengthen the school's reading program. Articles included in this Right to Read bulletin deal with the following topics: the heightened interest among educators in parent involvement in reading instruction; sharing tasks between parents and teachers in…

A hypothesized hierarchy of tasks in the development of tactual discrimination (an essential skill for reading) was tested in 60 blind primary level children. For five braille and five Optacon (optical to tactile converter) sequences, Ss were asked to identify the different stimulus from the four presented. Scalogram analysis was used to examine…

Preschool children participated in a classical music program to determine the effects of the program on their auditory discrimination skills. The development of auditory discrimination skills, considered a leading factor in reading readiness, is one of the objectives of the music program. Other objectives include emotional growth, experience in…

This 3-year longitudinal study is exploring readiness skills of children between 5 and 8 years of age and proposes a design for curriculum development. In this study, generalized concepts, visual-motor triordination, visual and auditory discrimination, visual and auditory memory (imagery), and oral language usage, are identified in order to…

A study was made of the research on perceptual-motor development programs and their effect on reading readiness or reading achievement. The selection of 11 studies was based on specific criteria such as a minimal sample size of 40 subjects, an experimental period of at least 18 weeks, and a pretest post-test research design with experimental and…

After a review of the research related to the feasibility of initiating reading instruction before first grade, kindergarten curriculum guides from l3 large cities were studied and analyzed. These analyses indicated a trend toward less postponement of reading instruction, though reading readiness still tended to be defined in terms of oral…

The Screening Test of Academic Readiness (STAR) and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) were administered to 52 kindergarten children to reveal the convergent validity of IQ scores derived from the STAR. The findings raise doubts about the validity of the deviation IQs derived from the STAR. (Author)

A study of the oral language of Native American children indicates that many are not proficient enough in English to learn to read. Suggestions are given for language development. (MKM)

Adequate improvement of education depends to some extent upon understanding behavior and learning within a social context. (JD)

Suggests ways a teacher who is interested in performing Piagetian testing might persuade a principal of the validity of the tests, and offers insight into the connection between cognitive development and reading achievement. (JC)

Reports findings of a study of current practices in kindergarten programs showing that teachers seldom use test results to adapt instruction to individual needs. (FL)

The reciprocal teaching procedure, which involves interactive dialogue and teacher modeling, was used to teach prereading skills (finger spelling, book reading, story retelling, and word recognition) to 23 prelingually deaf kindergarten and first-grade students. Pre-post test analyses showed that gains were made in letter, word, and story…

Examines whether partial pictorial cues facilitate imagery in 6-year-old children and whether the facilitation of recall is due to simple repetition of contextual information or to encoding specificity. Concludes children do benefit from partial pictures. (HOD)

This paper presents one perspective on a new methodology of program evaluation which defines four phases corresponding to the operational life of a school program. Examples and results are discussed in terms of relevance to basic skills improvement efforts and cost-effects. (LMO)