"The Critical Word Factor," based on word recognition demands of texts, is a measure of text difficulty designed specifically for texts used by beginning readers. The measure is a function of the number of new, unique words per 100 running words of text that fall outside a designated curriculum. The authors investigated the validity of the…

Examines the nature of listening assessment and recent developments of appropriate tests. Shows listenability to be a function of orality in language and offers a summary of discourse characteristics for selecting materials appropriate to listening instruction. (FL)

Investigates the process involved in acquiring word knowledge from written context in prereading kindergarten children. Analyzes children's readings of picture books to identify patterns of vocabulary growth. Concludes that children learned lexicogrammatical information incidentally through exposure to written context. (MM)

Longitudinal study investigated the relationship between print awareness and reading during the reading acquisition process of children from kindergarten through first grade. Results indicate that while print awareness plays a role in children's transition towards literacy, that role is entwined with the role of other reading knowledge and skills.…

Compares discourse between an adult and children as they make meaning of and respond to text and pictures. Finds the adult used a non-directive format during discourse about pictures and a question-response format during conversation about text. Finds that the adult initiated the majority of exchanges about text. (RS)

Examines effectiveness of project designed to increase inner-city children's opportunities to interact with storybooks in their classrooms and at home. Finds that 75% of children interacted with storybooks at a higher level of emergent reading at the end of the project, and 10 of the 28 children attempted to track print at postassessment, whereas…

Interweaving sociological/interpretive and cognitive/linguistic perspectives, this book explores the ways in which children first encounter the written word in formal schooling. The book examines the "culture" of literacy as it is introduced and practiced in a corpus of 163 basal and supplementary readers used in a representative…

Describes a study that investigated whether the structure of the materials children encounter and the abilities and experiences they bring to the act of reading affect the ease with which they comprehend the text. (FL)

A study considered the tasks for beginning readers posed by currently available beginning reading programs. A set of guidelines for evaluating beginning reading texts was identified. According to the model used, such texts should be "engaging, accessible, and generalizable." These guidelines were used to examine the literature components…

Argues that the secret behind truly powerful learning lies in developing students' metacognitive abilities. Presents an overview of the role of formative assessment in learning to read and in reading to learn. Discusses some research-based instructional techniques useful in helping students take executive control of the reading act. (SR)

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)

A study examined whether illustrations that must be attended to in order to make sense of a text hinder decoding by encouraging dependence on such illustrations for interpretation of text, both for decoding and for answering questions. Subjects--167 first graders--were asked to read four stories, two of which were taken from basal readers and two…

Explores the nature of the picture story book event from a semiotic perspective. Describes a classroom event in which a picture story book was constructed during teacher-student-text interaction in a second grade classroom using involving oral reading and discussion, interpretations of the main character's traits, letters to the author, and…

The authors present results of a generalizability study of running record assessment. They conducted 2 decision studies to ascertain the number of raters and passages necessary to obtain a reliable estimate of a student's reading ability on the basis of a running record assessment. Ten teachers completed running record assessments of 10…

Investigating the extent to which reading to children and book type affect kindergartners' ability to recall, write about, and read the text that their teacher has just read to them, a study examined the effects that the story reading techniques of six kindergarten teachers had on 52 of their students during three book reading sessions. On three…