The article explored the impact of topic background knowledge (TBK) on children's language ability development and reading-related emotional factors. TBK refers to the foundational knowledge that children possess concerning a specific subject or topic. The content schemata theory suggests that a high level of TBK facilitates information processing…

The authors examined whether exposing young students to spellings as they learn proper names would facilitate memory for the spoken names when tested without the spellings present (i.e., orthographic facilitation), whether emergent readers with letter knowledge would show this effect, and whether phonemic segmentation (PS) training would enhance…

Finds sequences of "episodes" that included various reading and talk strategies within emergent reading done by preschoolers. Indicates that children accumulate a repertoire of strategies, rather than abandoning old strategies as they develop new ones. Reveals several book, setting, and reading factors that contributed to changing strategies…

Using kindergarten subjects, a study examined whether prereaders learned better with visual cues while novice readers learned better with phonetic cues. (HOD)

This study investigated the trajectories of preschool and first-grade childrens development of reading skills, as well as the cognitive and social antecedents of that development. One-hundred and ninety-six 5- to 6-year-old children were tested in October and April of their preschool year and again in the first grade. Data included measures of…