Picture books inherently contain many parallel dimensions of information and serve as a rich source of input for children. However, studies of children's learning from picture books tend to focus on a single type of information (e.g., novel words). To better understand the learning-related potential of shared book reading, we examined 4.5- to…

Animal Assisted Interventions (AAI) have been shown to positively affect students' academic abilities as well as their overall behaviour and social skills. In typically developing students, dog-assisted reading programmes have improved reading skills and attitudes towards reading in addition to general behaviour. AAI programmes for special…

This article explores a first-grade team's efforts to develop a family-school literacy partnership. The first-grade teachers wrote and developed the "Family at Home Literacy Questionnaire" to understand how their first graders selected texts and read with family members at home. The findings identified a number of unexpected at-home…

In New Jersey and nationwide, legislative efforts require that schools refocus on teaching social emotional skills in order to meet the holistic needs of students and prevent bullying. However, with an ever-growing list of school requirements, no additional instructional time, and little guidance on how to teach social emotional skills, schools…

State tests, which assess reading comprehension, ask students to make inferences and connections beyond the text. The problem of practice in which this study is situated is that students are having difficulty making meaningful connections and developing inferences in relation to the material that is read aloud together in class or assigned for…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of a read-aloud test change administered with the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test (GMRT) on the underlying constructs measured by the Comprehension subtest. The study evaluated the factor structures for the Level 4 Comprehension subtest given to a sample of New Jersey fourth-grade students with…

The purpose of the study was to determine the effect of a companion text on the comprehension, vocabulary acquisition and fluency of students during teacher read alouds. Data were collected over a period of six days in an upper-middle class suburban school district in northern New Jersey. The students involved in the study consisted of eighteen…

A study investigated children's comprehension of stories read to a small group, and to a whole class. Ten storybooks were read to two classes of first grade children from the same school in suburban New Jersey. Five children randomly selected from one class listened to the stories as part of a whole class. From the other first grade class, five…

A study determined whether reading aloud to children before entering school would influence their reading grade level as determined by their report card grade. Subjects, 85 first-grade children in a suburban school district in central New Jersey, took surveys home to be completed by parents. Results indicated that: (1) those children who were read…

A descriptive study determined whether reading aloud to young children promoted literacy and enhanced their desire to read. Subjects, 20 second-grade children (aged 6 to 7 years) in Avenel, New Jersey, were exposed to read-aloud sessions on a daily basis for a 6-week period. During each week, a specific genre of books was read aloud daily. At the…

A descriptive study examined whether reading aloud to children regularly beginning at infancy would have an effect on their future disposition to reading. Subjects, 487 kindergarten through third grade students in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, were given a questionnaire to be completed by the parents. Ninety-seven questionnaires representing 116…

A study was conducted to determine if pregnant women read to their unborn child. A randomly selected sample of 47 pregnant women in the Toms River, New Jersey area between the ages of 20 and 35, visiting their obstetricians' offices for monthly checkups were chosen for the study. A questionnaire was administered to mothers in the waiting room…

A study determined if regular listening to oral reading by the teacher affected fourth-grade students' level of comprehension. Subjects were 47 students from an elementary school in central New Jersey. Twenty-five students were read to for 30 minutes daily for 8 weeks in addition to their regular classroom reading instruction. The remaining 22…

The present study investigated early literacy development in minority middle-class families. The subjects were parents and preschool children ages 3-5 that attended a private early childhood center in Irvington, New Jersey. Each family was given one home visit and a library visit. The literacy practices of the families were observed and recorded…

Research supports that drama should be an integral part of the elementary and secondary curriculum. Utilizing drama strategies enriches learning in the reading program, the literature program, and the areas of oral language development, nonverbal communication, vocabulary development, listening skills, thinking skills, and creative writing. Yet,…