Describes the effects of one community's concept of readiness for school on children in a kindergarten class. Of particular interest was the effect on children's understanding of their roles as students. The concept of readiness provided the framework for instructional activities and helped parents understand their children's roles as students.…

In the Albion Writing Project at the State University of New York at Brockport, teachers, students, administrators, and college consultants collaborated on improving writing and writing instruction from kindergarten through grade 6. Throughout the two-year project, teachers attended inservice workshops on such general topics as the composing…

A case study detailed the influence of a nine-year-old female sibling on the writing development of her younger brother, from the time he was 18 months old until he was 28 months old. General and significant interactions, such as the boy's oral language milestones and the books the children shared, were recorded in a journal by their mother.…

Small children are very imaginative, and teachers should provide varied experiences to encourage continued growth of their imaginations. Classroom instructional settings can be full of discovery and learning if teachers provide many prewriting opportunities that allow children to discover opportunities for writing. These experiences should cut…

Having implications for teachers and students at all stages of primary school, this project report delineates an alternative and more effective approach to the teaching of beginning writing. The report points out that the project, while producing a body of classroom-tested material, focused on awareness about written language and how children…

A variety of process-oriented writing instruction strategies are presented in this focused journal issue. Article titles and authors are as follows: (1) "Central Reference to the Rescue" (Rod Kessler); (2)"Brainstorming: A Heuristic that Works" (Frank C. Cronin); (3) "Brainstorming: A Valuable Supplemental Technique for…

Written by teachers of elementary school students, the 30 articles in this collection are designed to provide insights into the way children learn to write and to encourage teachers to examine their own theories and perceptions of writing and writing instruction. The articles are grouped in six sections, covering beginning writing, collaborative…

An extensive resource manual and teaching guide is presented for the kindergarten teacher in the early French immersion program. The first three chapters contain introductory material discussing the kindergarten child, this particular program, language development in kindergarten, and the role of the kindergarten teacher which is analagous to that…

Integrating reading and writing at the primary level is important because writing and then reading back what has been written gives purpose to both, and the sense of overall purpose enhances reading while the sense of audience enhances writing. Another reason for starting this integration with beginning students is that writing creates a purpose…