West Virginia is a nationally recognized leader for its strong commitment to high-quality early learning education programming. West Virginia is one of a very small handful of states in the nation with free, full-day, five-day kindergarten for all children AND voluntary universal pre-k to all four-year-old children (and three-year-old children…

Vocational Education, Community Training, and Occupational Relations Program (VECTOR) serves a variety of students with disabilities, about one-third of whom are deaf, hard of hearing, or deaf/blind. As part of what the federal government calls a "traditionally underserved population," these students come from the homes of immigrants and…

Because of its continued commitment to and investment in high-quality early & elementary learning, West Virginia has established itself as a national leader in the area of early learning. This accolade is not uncommon for West Virginia's early learning system, as West Virginia has a history of leading the nation in early learning and with…

Storytimes, lap-sit programs, and other services for young children are a major part of most public libraries' missions. According to children's librarians, these services play a significant role in preparing children for success as readers. This article discusses the positive relationship between children's services and early reading success by…

The following criticism of current practices for determining reading readiness are discussed: (1) the variables measured by readiness tests are in many cases unrelated to instruction, (2) while the variables measured are correlated with reading achievement, this association does not attribute causality, and (3) the criterion selected for measuring…

During the first year of the program, 27 individual projects enrolling approximately 20,000 first-grade pupils were involved. Fifteen of these projects participated in a second-grade followup study. Some conclusions based on an analysis of data are (1) that prereading knowledge of letter names is the best single predictor of reading achievement in…

DATA RELEVANT TO THE FOLLOWING THREE QUESTIONS WERE DRAWN FROM 27 INDIVIDUAL STUDIES COMPRISING THE COOPERATIVE RESEARCH PROGRAM IN FIRST-GRADE READING INSTRUCTION--(1) TO WHAT EXTENT ARE VARIOUS PUPIL, TEACHER, CLASS, SCHOOL, AND COMMUNITY CHARACTERISTICS RELATED TO ACHIEVEMENT IN FIRST-GRADE READING AND SPELLING, (2) WHICH APPROACH TO INITIAL…

This project evaluated the effectiveness of the "Flex-Ed" Reading Readiness Program with nineteen first grade students. Most of the nineteen students had scored below or near the tenth percentile of the MacMillan Readiness Test. Four behavioral objectives were written for the students in the areas of space, quantity, time, and basic…

Based directly on the findings from the National Research Council's report "Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children," this guide offers a "checklist" that will help teachers and principals recognize at a glance the key characteristics of quality reading programs identified in the research. The guide does not describe any single way to…

Based directly on the reports of the National Reading Panel ("Teaching Children To Read") and the National Research Council ("Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children"), this guide is designed to be an accessible and practical document that delivers research findings about effective reading instruction that may serve as guidelines for…

This project report describes pilot programs of the Ames Community School District for two school years, 1973-74 and 1974-75. The purposes of the pilot programs were to ascertain whether objectives were met, to consider the appropriateness of activities and materials, to determine the validity of the test measure, to assess the degree to which…

The purposes of this study were to custom make a reading readiness program for a group of kindergarten children and to compare their progress with that of a second group. A pretest was administered to all of the children and then each child was grouped according to his or her needs. Two classes were involved in the study, one labeled control and…

Current research dealing with the importance of reading, various beginning reading programs, and reading and the disadvantaged child was surveyed. This was followed by an explanation of the DISTAR Reading Program, which was designed to teach reading to disadvantaged children. The remainder of the report described a study which was conducted to…

On the assumption that the absence of remedial students in the classroom permits enriched instruction to take place, this study examined the reading achievement gains of those first graders who remain in the classroom while their project-eligible classmates leave for reading instruction. Metropolitan Readiness Test stanine scores were used for…

THE FINAL REPORT FOR THE COORDINATED FIRST-GRADE STUDIES FROM THE OFFICE OF EDUCATION IS PRESENTED. THE STUDIES INVESTIGATED THE FOLLOWING--(1) TO WHAT EXTENT PUPIL, TEACHER, CLASS, SCHOOL, AND COMMUNITY CHARACTERISTICS ARE RELATED TO FIRST-GRADE READING AND SPELLING ACHIEVEMENT, (2) WHICH APPROACH TO INITIAL READING INSTRUCTION PRODUCES SUPERIOR…