The "Early Years Learning Framework for Australia" emphasises that children's own identity is constructed within their given context of family and community. This article presents the findings of a multiple case study project undertaken within five remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, Australia. Community Elders were…

Genetic and environmental influences on prereading skills in preschool and on early reading and spelling development at the end of kindergarten were compared among samples of identical and fraternal twins from the U.S. (Colorado), Australia, and Scandinavia. Mean comparisons revealed significantly lower preschool print knowledge in Scandinavia,…

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)

Investigates the effects of four types of prereading activities on comprehension of Australian fifth grade students: (1) irrelevant tasks (control); (2) pictorial introductions to the subject; (3) content-directed questions; and (4) free-association to the passage's titles. Determines that, although the pictorial introduction group performed best,…

Individual differences in measures of prereading skills and in questionnaire measures of 4-5-year-old twins' print environments in Australia, Scandinavia, and the United States were explored with a behavioral-genetic design. Modest phenotypic correlations were found between environmental measures and the twins' print knowledge, general verbal…

A 12-month longitudinal study was conducted in Brisbane, Australia, to investigate the interaction that takes place when a parent and young child read together. Parent-child book-reading episodes that took place in the home at the end of the preschool year of 25 randomly selected children and at the end of Year 1 at a State Primary School were…

The influence of informal literacy learning during the preschool years was studied. Preschool teachers in 4 low-income areas read to their classes regularly in an effort to make students enthusiastic about reading. Teachers were also asked to visit families in particular need of help. Three books were sent home with each child twice a week, and…