This study explored developmental differences in children's segmentation skills of VC and CV syllables (e.g., /af/ and /fa/) in relation to their early reading abilities. To this end, we followed a subgroup of Dutch speaking prereaders who participated in Geudens and Sandra (2003, Experiment 1), and replicated the segmentation task in first grade,…

Attendance in U.S. preschools has risen substantially in recent decades, but gaps in enrollment between children from advantaged and disadvantaged families remain. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999, we analyze the effect of participation in child care and early education on children's school…

Research has shown that adult-child shared book reading can enhance language and literacy development in the early years, although little is known about how mothers and children from socio-economically disadvantaged communities interact around books. This study investigated the shared reading interactions of three mother-child dyads living in such…

Parenting a gifted child may not be what Mom and Dad expected when they read parenting books and first saw that innocent infant face. A gifted child is a joy and a challenge--rarely predictable, sometimes frustrating and annoying, but never boring. This article discusses the characteristics and vulnerabilities of the gifted. The author offers some…

A comparative investigation of word reading efficiency indicates that different strategies may be used by English and Swedish early readers. In a first study, 328 native English speakers from UK Years 3 and 6 completed a pen-and-paper word recognition task (the "Wordchains" test). Results were analysed for frequency and type of errors…

The study examined the validity of the Child Observation Record (COR). Participants were 242 children, a stratified, random sample of a large, urban Head Start program. Teachers trained to collect COR data provided assessments on the Cognitive, Social Engagement, and Coordinated Movement dimensions of the COR. Outcome data included cognitive and…

Using a pretest-posttest comparison-group design, this 16-week study investigated the effects of 2 instructional approaches on the phonological awareness, alphabetic knowledge, and early reading of kindergarten children. The primary goal was to compare a form of contextualized instruction based on an adapted interactive writing program with a…

Learning to read becomes a difficult task for many children, particularly if they have not been reared in early childhood settings where literacy-based activities, interactions, or materials are prevalent. This study examined the impact that providing a college-level course in research-based instructional strategies for literacy development to…

This study uses linguistic humor to show that awareness of only those linguistic units transcribed by the orthography bear a special relation to early reading success. The study is decribed following a review of the literature and a discussion of advantages and problems associated with the use of humor appreciation as a probe of children's…

This phonics outline is designed as a guide for parents, as a manual for teachers, and as a handbook for those who wish to improve their reading pronunciation skills. The purposes of the handbook are: (1) to show parents what a person needs to know to become a good reader; (2) to provide a convenient source of words that follow rules of phonics;…

Early reading instruction is important for all children, but especially for the disadvantaged, because the decision not to expose them to reading at an early age may result in an unrecoverable loss of intellectual potential. Reading readiness as an approach may exile children from literacy permanently because it is an abstract and alien process…

A study examined two contexts in teaching a language experience approach (LEA) reading lesson to kindergarten children. The five children--Black, Hispanic, and White students of varying ability levels--first developed a group story of their own using the Van Allen language experience approach. The teacher recorded the story, and the students wrote…

Unproven beliefs about the process of reading and its instruction and about the effects of maturation and social structure on learning have obscured the question of what children know about how to read. An alternate conceptualization proposes that to learn to read children must obtain experience in three reading contexts: the use of print and its…

To gain additional information about how young children actually develop and use literacy before entering school, four young children were studied indepth by means of family questionnaires, reading age tests, diagnostic subskill tests, and miscue analysis. Five months later, the children were again tested to see if reading age had increased and if…

The new editions of basal readers differ in significant ways from their predecessors: they are longer, more attractive, linguistically sounder, use larger vocabularies. (JH)