Investigates the nature and role of predictable texts for beginning readers and writers in first grade. Examines ways three children used texts to support their early-literacy development. Finds diverse and complex activities, as children made links within a text (textuality), between texts (intertextuality), and between texts and contexts…

Shows that children in the primary grades possessed considerable working knowledge of the cultural conventions of narrative genres but much less working knowledge of the cultural conventions of informational genres. Reveals grade-related developmental differences for some dimensions of linguistic and textual organization. Shows that cultural…

In order to describe the developmental patterns of writing and rereading from writing of kindergarten children across group and individual contexts, a study asked 123 kindergarten children in Palatine, Illinois, to write and reread stories of their own composition over a school year. Children were asked to write in group classroom conditions at…

Compares and critiques two models of invented spelling stages, arguing that knowledge of stages of invented spelling can lead to better assessment of children and more informed literacy instruction by offering a window into the learner's mind. Notes that good communication with parents about invented spelling can eliminate much of the controversy.…

A study investigated the feasibility of presenting to primary-grade children a holistic, functional language arts program instead of a subskill one. Over 1,000 children from 16 inner city elementary schools were divided into three groups: (1) Group A, taught by teachers trained in holistic and language oriented approaches to reading and writing,…

Finds literature to be the most effective model for writing in the author's second-grade classroom. Discusses five ways that children borrow ideas from literature and the function of borrowed ideas. (SR)

Discusses how writing and reading came together in response journals for first graders, motivating a variety of reactions to literature and showing that even young children have a range of responses to literature that they can express through writing. (SR)

A study determined the effect of shared writing activities on reading comprehension. The subjects, 40 second- and third-grade students from a suburban school in Mercer County, West Virginia, completed the Reading Comprehension Subtest of the Comprehension Test of Basic Skills (CTBS) for grade 2 as a pretest. A control group of 20 students were…

To understand how children in whole language kindergartens develop as writers and readers, seven kindergarten teacher/researchers and a university teacher/researcher studied 183 children in the Manhattan-Ogden, Kansas, school district over one school year. Each quarter, teachers recorded all the writing behaviors they had observed in their…

Finds that six low-income children in two different instructional settings (skills-based and whole language) learned alphabetic concepts and skills necessary for successful reading and writing. Notes that both instructional settings provided explicit phonics instruction (albeit contextualized differently) and time for self-selected reading and for…

Observes low socioeconomic-level learners during literacy instruction for two years. Finds similarities in learner concern about accuracy. Notes that cross-curricular differences centered on applications of phonics knowledge, responses to literature, coping strategies, and learner perceptions of themselves as readers and writers. Finds a…

Presents case studies of two struggling reader/writers who found a "way in" to the world of literacy through nonnarrative texts. Argues for greater attention to nonnarrative in early literacy education. (SR)

A study investigated what effect, if any, a planned program of writing activities had on reading comprehension. A group of second grade students from Linden Elementary School, West Virginia, were the subjects. Subjects were divided into a control (12 students) and an experimental (13 students) group. Both groups were given a pretest and a…

A research project sought to raise reading achievement among senior Kindergarten students at Doncrest Public School (York, Ontario, Canada) to enable them to reach the Kindergarten reading standard and to maintain this level of reading over the summer months. In response to assessment data, the literacy program in Kindergarten was adapted to…

Writing to Read (WTR), a project of the International Business Machine Corporation (IBM), is a language development program designed to facilitate reading, writing, listening and speaking skills of kindergarten and first grade students. This paper reports on an evaluation of WTR in a large suburban school district in Georgia seeking answers to the…