Preschool children experience literature early on through nursery rhymes, being read to, and tales told by parents and grandparents. This introduction to the literature of a child's culture, family, and times should be a most comfortable experience. On reaching school, however, the child will find that the demands of pedagogy become insistent over…

This document focuses on trends in school and home frameworks for learning found in National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data from 1977 to 1990. Trends in classroom instruction, course taking, students' attitudes, homework versus television viewing, and reading habits and home support for literacy are considered. One table provides…