Collected in this document are seven papers presented at the Ohio Conference on Reading and Early Childhood: (1) "Kids," Jerome Kagen; (2) "Parents as Partners," Christine F. Branche; (3) "When the Young Child Finds Importance in Reading," Leland B. Jacobs; (4) "Four Questions on Early Childhood Education,"…

Shows that mentally handicapped preschool children can learn to read words when word cards become tools for communicating their wishes. Indicates also that language skills improve and that these transfer to other situations. (FL)

Investigates the effect of two repeated reading procedures on second grade transitional readers' oral reading performance with practiced and unpracticed passages. Found that reading rate, accuracy, comprehension and prosodic reading were significantly improved by repeated reading practice, regardless of training procedure employed. (SKC)

Provides answers to five important questions in reading instruction; outlines stages in reading development, including "stage 0" (birth to age six)--the "prereading" stage; and points to evidence from research and practice supporting a developmental view in reading instruction. (MD)

Concludes that young children of varying abilities, given an opportunity to experience reading as a visual and a thought process, take a more active role in their own learning. (FL)

Argues that teachers can take advantage of child-initiated explorations to develop beginning reading and writing skills. Offers specific recommendations and suggestions. (FL)

Concludes that, at the beginning of their school careers, children are quite different as far as reading and writing are concerned, and that there are certain universal prerequisites to reading and writing that may be termed "metalinguistic skills." (FL)

The Pacific Communities with High-performance in Literacy Development (Pacific CHILD) Professional Development Model research project was initiated in response to an overwhelming need in PREL's Pacific service region for improvement of teachers' knowledge and instructional practices in early reading. This report examines the question of the…

Reviews research related to the teaching of reading at various grade levels and for various purposes. (VJ)

Examines various explanations for the lack of reading problems in Japan, including the nature of the Japanese written language, the interest of Japanese parents in teaching young children to read, the different perceptual processes involved in reading Japanese, and the quantity of Japanese publications suitable for preschool children. (FL)

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)

Discusses advantages--and a few disadvantages--of using social sight words (such as "sale,""stop," and "exit") in introducing young children to reading; suggests learning activities involving such words. (GT)

Describes two models of childrens' literacy acquisition developed by research psychologists. Argues that these models make practical sense by embodying within them the notion that children use a combination of top-down and bottom-up processes to solve the problems of how to read. (RS)

Traces the history of the early reading movement in Italy and relates the experiences of parent-guided reading with preschool children and teacher-guided reading with kindergarten children. Recent studies on early reading and research in the area of early bilingual reading is discussed. (CFM)

This study compared intellectually superior students (ages 8-9) identified as accelerated readers (n=11) or nonreaders (n=8) at the age of 4 and provided similar types of elementary school basal reading instruction. Accelerated readers scored higher than nonreaders on measures of word attack and dictation, with no differences on word recognition…