Although early reading instruction focuses on phonemic awareness and the alphabetic principle, research indicates that reading comprehension strategies can be effectively taught to young students. Peer-reviewed studies that employed experimental or quasi-experimental designs and included children between the ages of five and nine, some of whom had…

The importance of emergent literacy skills as a foundation for proficient reading has led to the development of interventions to teach these skills. These interventions are particularly important for children from disadvantaged homes because they often lack the home literacy experiences necessary for building foundational literacy skills prior to…

Argues that it is possible for stories to both entertain the reader and teach reading techniques. Suggests that the apprentice approach to reading instruction, using good stories and with judicious intervention by teachers, can be rigorous. (MG)

Examined the contribution of play, metaplay, and productive language competence in the thematic-fantasy play context to kindergartners' comprehension of familiar and unfamiliar stories. Results indicated that metaplay and productive language competence are independent constructs and both contribute to comprehension, whereas play does not. (GLR)

A study examined whether text structures were included in the "oral" videotaped retellings of a second grader with deafness across 28 texts. Improvements in the child's ability to include specific elements of text structures were documented over nine months. A 12-month increase in reading ability and narrative ability was also documented.…

Investigates the effectiveness of instruction in story mapping as a means to promote first-grade students' comprehension of central story elements in children's literature. Concludes that instruction in story mapping is an effective instructional strategy for promoting first-grade students' ability to identify central narrative elements in…

Discusses how beginning readers respond to familiar and unfamiliar stories. States that children begin as inventive readers, using different strategies--such as naming, counting, or structuring--to "read" the text. (MM)

Discusses the use of story frames as a strategy for teaching reading comprehension to first grade students, and includes examples of student responses. (JC)

An example of reader, writer, and text transaction and interaction may be seen in a study that examined story grammar and applied propositional analysis, cohesive analysis, and miscue analysis to one reader and one text to determine comprehension. A third grade boy read and then retold the story "The Accident." The miscues were marked,…

This book helps teachers introduce story elements to children in the primary grades. The book's lessons and activities complement the learning goals teachers have for their classes. The book is divided into sections on character, plot, setting, and theme. It has an introduction at the beginning of each section to bring the learning goals for that…

Based on the hypothesis that teachers' naturally occurring presentations of storyreading have an effect on children's literacy learning, a study examined whether teachers can be trained to provide a structure for listening to stories and whether this type of presentation would result in significant gains in children's story understanding. Five…