Picturebooks tell stories in both words and pictures. Interacting with the printed word, the technical elements of illustration--color, line, shape and composition--work to establish and enhance the story. Sometimes simply by adding description of characters and setting, and, at times, by challenging the veracity of the text with ironic or…

The genetic factor structure of a range of learning measures was explored in twin children, recruited in preschool and followed to Grade 2 ("N"?=?2,084). Measures of orthographic learning and word reading were included in the analyses to determine how these patterned with the learning processes. An exploratory factor analysis of the…

Among conclusions presented by a review of research on modality preference as a method for differentiating beginning reading instruction are that differentiating instruction according to modality preference apparently did not facilitate learning to read. (Author)

This study examined how school-aged children process different grammatical categories. Event-related brain potentials elicited by words in visually presented sentences were analyzed according to seven grammatical categories with naturally varying characteristics of linguistic functions, semantic features, and quantitative attributes of length and…

Research conducted over the past 80 years is examined to answer three questions on sensory modality as it relates to reading. In the 18 studies reviewed which relate to the superiority of one modality over another, there was no consensus regarding the relative effectiveness of modalities among adults. The evidence leans toward greater…

Critiques an experiment by M. Arlin, M. Scott, and J. Webster (see EJ 206 153) in which their pictures as an aid to learning hypothesis contrasts with the focal attention hypothesis supported by research by H. Singer, S. J. Samuels, and J. Spiroff (see EJ 105 648). (MKM)

Investigates whether the prelexical phonological route develops prior to the visual route while learning to read Greek. Finds reading accuracy unaffected by the main psycholinguistic properties of words; chronological age did not influence long-term reading acquisition; and beginning readers used phonological information in reading but started to…

One of the twelve exemplary programs summarized in the Introduction to Right to Read's "Effective Reading Programs: Summaries of 222 Selected Programs" (CS001934), this program attempts to raise the reading skills of inmates of the Sierra Conservation Center to the level needed for training in conservation work while in prison, or for…

A sample of 15 good and 15 poor first-grade readers, selected on the basis of the teacher's classification, performance on the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test, Primary A, Form 1, and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, was individually taught five nonsense syllables by each of four teaching modality procedures: visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and a…

This book presents a method of teaching letter sounds to children; it suggests ways for the elementary teacher or parent to involve children physically, as well as mentally, in the learning process. For example, to learn the letter "Y," children stand with outstretched arms to form themselves into the letter Y; to learn the "Z" sound, children…

Kindergarten students were taught words with or without pictures to test the focal attention hypothesis that pictures interfere with sight-word learning. In this study, pictures presented with words facilitated rather than hindered learning. (MKM)

This study focuses on the relationship between blending ability and reading comprehension among 80 prereading children from three private preschools. Three methods of instruction were tested: One group was instructed with an auditory method; the second group was instructed with an auditory-visual method; and the third group practiced the basic set…

A study examined hierarchical relationships among three developmental components of reading ability in grades 1 through 3. It was predicted that semantic skills develop initially, followed by letter identification skills, phonological skills, and visual skills. Reading ability was assessed with a word identification task. The semantic components…

An exploratory study to discover the relationships between preferred learning modalities and differentiated presentations of reading tasks was conducted in a low socioeconomic, predominantly Puerto Rican public school in New York City, with 106 first-grade children as subjects. Preferred learning modality (auditory, visual, or kinesthetic) was…