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

Documents how a preschool child learns to read. Identifies what teachers need to know if they are to continue the reader's own discoveries and delight in language. (EL)

Some children become capable readers and writers before ever attending school and without exposure to formal instruction. This phenomenon--sometimes referred to as natural literacy development--is not, in the strictest sense, natural; as the adult presents much of the literacy environment to the child in a socialized, mediated form, teaching is…

Children growing up in literate societies, surrounded by the printed word, begin to read and write long before they start school. The extent and scope of early literacy development is examined. Theoretical explanations of this development are offered. Implications for schools are presented. (RM)

Asserts that in school children are taught to isolate communication systems from each other, such as music, art, language, drama, and mathematics. Uses examples from the lives of two children to explore how children think about time, learning as a social process, and early literacy growth. (BGC)

Defining emergent as the process of becoming and literacy as the interrelatedness of reading and writing in young children's development, this paper reviews emergent literacy research and relates it to beginning reading and writing instruction. The first section of the paper describes the social and linguistic contexts for literacy, reviewing…

According to a recent study by the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE) at the London School of Economics, poverty and social exclusion have been taken very seriously by this Government, resulting in high-profile targets, new policies and funding streams. Social exclusion was recognised to consist of multi-faceted and interlinked…