As alternatives to preschool story hours, Parent-Child Learning Centers offer opportunities for parent education, hands-on activities that are appropriate for the developmental needs of the young child, more effective use of the library professional's time and skills, and expansion of library service to meet the changing needs of the community.…

Experiment 1 examined the position that mirror-image confusions reflect an inability among three- to five-year-olds to determine whether their performance level differences reflect differences among nonreaders already attending and those not yet attending to reading cues. Experiment 2 examined the Experiment 1 four- and five-year-olds, identified…

Examines prereading and beginning reading from both a historical and a current perspective with emphasis on the implications of recent findings on children's literacy learning for instruction. (FL)

Parents have an important role in their child's early preparation for reading. To help children develop positive attitudes towards reading, parents can read aloud, talk and listen to their children, show good reading habits, play with their children, and take field trips. (DF)

Concludes that preschool children know that print conveys information, yet frequently use environmental cues rather than letter knowledge when they appear to read. (FL)

This paper examines the benefit of nursery rhymes in literacy acquisition. It begins by discussing the history and attribution of various rhymes and the linkage of nursery rhymes with Mother Goose. It then suggests literacy advantages of children who know nursery rhymes over children who do not, which include the abilities to: (1) learn the…

Results of this study showed that the high intralist-similarity groups required more learning trails but demonstrated greater word-recognition skills than the low intralist-similarity groups regardless of whether pretraining was used although discrimination pretraining did increase the rate of learning in beginning reading. (TO)

Kindergarten children received prereading instruction based on a code systems approach. Results suggest that: (1) kindergarten children can learn the concepts and vocabulary of code systems; and (2) such instruction is related to their perception of the nature and purpose of reading and can be incorporated into existing kindergarten programs. (PP)

Discusses several ways teachers can use picture books for teaching prereading and reading skills. Reviews several such books. (FL)

Three measures--logical reasoning ability, lexical comprehension, and home teaching activities--provided the best overall model in accounting for differences in children's performances across the print awareness measures. (HOD)

This article offers both a rationale and method for the implementation of a natural literacy program for preschool children with language disabilities. It reviews research on development of fundamental literacy skills and briefly describes extant approaches to facilitating literacy skills. Tenets of the natural literacy perspective are explained…

Kindergarteners' three pretend readings of two picture storybooks are analyzed in terms of approximate, ambiguous, and five types of extrapolated tokens. Seven tables show the results of analyses. It is suggested that children use various constructive strategies to acquire a familiarity with the registers of typical written story language.…

Preschool students were given picture symbol prereading activities instead of traditional prereading activities. Results indicate that picture prereading activities have a positive effect on preschool children's attitudes toward books. (NH)