Learning music can help children with reading readiness and beginning reading skills. (MKM)

An extended readiness unit plan for beginning first graders who demonstrated a limited degree of readiness in kindergarten is provided. The unit theme is the five senses, and the following sequence of presentation is used: sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste. Visual-perception activities receive the most emphasis. Included in procedures for…

The main purpose of this investigation was to study the relationships between visual memory and early reading achievement. Short term and intermediate memory were examined in relation to vocabulary, reading comprehension, and reading readiness in first grade pupils. The Gates MacGinitie Readiness Skills Test; the Visual Memory for Designs Tests,…

A LONGITUDINAL STUDY WAS PERFORMED WHICH FOLLOWED THREE GROUPS OF CHILDREN (CULTURALLY DISADVANTAGED, AVERAGE, AND CULTURALLY ADVANTAGED) THROUGH GRADE THREE IN AN ATTEMPT TO DETERMINE THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF CERTAIN PERCEPTUAL FACTORS ON SUCCESS OR FAILURE IN BEGINNING READING. INSTRUMENTS USED WERE SELECTED TO IDENTIFY…

Points out that oral reading involves visual, auditory, and kinesthetic perception and that it is impossible to divide reading methods into auditory and visual categories. Discusses the need to discover whether a child's perceptual abilities are directly related to his learning propensities and lists several other areas of needed research.…

Having rejected the assumption that children meeting the criteria of "unimpaired" possess the basic perceptual skills needed to organize raw data into meaningful symbolic units, and the notion that children less adept in these skills can be categorized as "learning disabled" or "culturally disadvantaged," the Learning Research and Development…

The concept of "preliteracy" is important for adult literacy programs. All illiterate adults can undertake their initiation into the world of letters and figures provided they are strongly motivated to do so. Experiments on motivation indicate that literacy programs must respond at least to one essential need of the future literate…

In a study that investigated differences in the processing styles of beginning readers, a Pictograph Sentence Memory Test (PSMT) was administered to first and second grade students to determine their processing style as well as to assess instructional effects. Based on their responses to the PSMT, the children were classified as either visual or…

Several researchers have attempted to measure sequencing and integration in the decoding process in an effort to isolate some independent variables that may contribute to reading retardation, but most have measured the ability of children to manipulate nonverbal material. It is unclear whether nonverbal tests measure the same processes involved in…

The Hartford Public School District has set up and is maintaining three Intensive Reading Centers, each of which provides a 10-weeks reading program for first graders. The purpose of the program is to improve the reading achievement of disadvantaged children. Children in groups of 10 or 11 move from teacher to teacher at 50-minute intervals. They…

Kindergarten teachers should be concerned with the development of the child physically, psychologically, and socially. The development of readiness for reading should be part of the child's day-by-day activities in the kindergarten. Structured prereading activities should be conducted in informal, game-like ways. They should involve the active…

Designed to explore new reading readiness predictors that are not found extensively in the more commonly used commercial group tests and to develop new indices to measure the level of reading readiness of beginning first graders, a study was undertaken involving 115 children. The factor of sex in reading readiness was also investigated. An…

A 3-year study attempted (1) to predict reading achievement through third grade, (2) to establish data for a nonverbal discrimination test, (3) to devise supplementary perceptual instructional programs, and (4) to develop screening devices to assess perceptual abilities and identify potential learning disabilities. In first, second, and third…