A week-long exploratory observational case study of two white middle class girls (4 years, 9 months of age) investigated how children incorporate reading and writing literacy skills and knowledge of literacy artifacts into their play activities. Also examined was the role these play activities have in the development of literacy. Data were…

Notes that humor and hope can produce an interest in reading and writing in children. Presents ideas for developing interest in language arts as well as suggested poems, picture books, and beginning chapter books. Also includes classroom suggestions for developing the four needs of beginning writers: ideas, words, structures, and spelling. (LBT)

The purpose of this study was to examine the way in which early childhood educators introduce reading and writing to 4- and 5-year-olds. A random sampling of the 903 public and private preschools registered with the Human Services Department in a midwestern state was conducted. Questionnaires were mailed to 687 randomly selected early childhood…

Explores how children become oriented to literacy and how their perceptions of the purpose of print develop as they move toward becoming more fluent users of print. (DF)

This report details a year-long study of the emerging literacy of preschoolers and kindergarteners in two southwest Florida communities. Using a quasi-experimental design, investigation focused on two preschools and two kindergarten classes that implemented certain strategies associated with a whole language philosophy, including daily shared…

Spelling practices, processes, and implications can be analyzed in terms of three conceptual models: the bottom up, the top down, and the interactive compensatory model. Spelling instruction from post-colonial America into the 20th century reveals a preoccupation with the bottom up philosophy, which emphasized rules, word lists, and rote…

Examines the oral language and related literacy performances of four four-year olds to determine the role and functions of oral language in prekindergarten classroom exchanges, writing episodes, and print-awareness tasks. Children who are adept in oral use of Halliday's seven functions have a developed sense of their culture's literacy and perform…

Indicates that while middle-class preschool children may not have fully developed concepts of linguistic terms used in an instructional setting and may not be able to indicate word-by-word matching of spoken and written words, they do have a functional concept for the purpose of reading and writing. (FL)

Literacy development was studied among 38 4-year-olds in Head Start on the Lummi Indian Reservation. Data consisted of observations during weekly visits throughout the school year, student writing samples, records of "pretend reading," responses to environmental print, and checklists assessing written language displays in the classrooms.…

The reflections and theses on preschool children's literacy development presented in this book are the result of an experimental project carried out in Buenos Aires from 1974 to 1976. Chapter 1 discusses the educational situation in Latin America, traditional methods of reading instruction, contemporary psycholinguistics, the pertinence of…