Many students lack early literacy skills because they have not had opportunities to listen to or talk about stories, engage in word play, read with family members, or view literacy behaviors modeled in the home. The Collaborative Storybook Reading Program presents a model for providing interactive reading experiences for at-risk kindergarten…

In recent years, the DfES, 2003 has pushed schools to try and integrate more interactive teaching methods into everyday teaching and learning. This push in technology has lead to an increased call for the use of interactive software to support reading. This study looks at whether talking stories benefit the children who use them. It is a…

In this article, Aline Wolf discusses the challenges of teaching elementary reading at present time. She also raises her concern not only about the declining of reading skills, but also about the declining number of books that students actually read which creates a dilemma for teachers. She believes that the Montessori community must give priority…

This book helps educators design story times that extend and explore a variety of how-and-why stories with students. Chapters include: (1) "Pourquoi Tales"; (2) "Activities"; (3) "Story Themes and Topics"; and (4) "Annotated Bibliography." Further readings categorized by geographic location, and other materials can be used to prepare story hours,…

A study was conducted to survey the attitudes of elementary students toward read-aloud experiences. Subjects were 575 children in grades one through six. The results of first grade students were omitted due to inconsistencies in their responses. The remaining grade level distribution consisted of 137 second graders, 121 third graders, 145 fourth…

This study was conducted to investigate how literature and literacy could merge, what effect immersion in a particular type of literature had on the writing and oral stories the children were producing, and what effect spontaneous talk and storymaking had on the classroom literacy process. Each day for 8 weeks, 10 fifth-grade students met…

This study investigated young children's development of understanding of two written genre registers, story and information books, by analyzing 5-year-olds' repeated pretend readings of a typical text of each genre. Ten female and 10 male kindergarten students were read 3 books in each genre during their kindergarten year. At each child's reading…

There is a growing recognition of the way in which instruction can be enriched by engagement with narrative, and teachers can learn much from studying interactions between parents and children where the activity seems unforced and enjoyable and where parent and child seem most in harmony. Such a pair are three-year-old Anna and her mother, who is…

The nature of children's communication processes of listening, speaking, reading, and drawing/writing that occur during story time is explored in this paper, which describes story time as a literacy event. The framework that children develop during story-time can serve as a vehicle for language arts instruction. In helping children cultivate…

A survey of 14 leading language arts, children's literature, and reading methods books, as well as professional journal articles and other notable books on reading to children, yielded a total of eight recommendations made by more than half of the authors, including the following: (1) prepare by previewing the book, (2) read with expression, (3)…

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…

Written in Choctaw and English, the illustrated booklet presents a Choctaw version of "This Little Pig Went to Market." The finger play activity emphasizes Choctaw values and cultural information such as generosity, humor, traditional clothing, designs, food, sports and art. The last page provides a teacher's guide with objectives and…

A study examined prereaders' story processing strategies by assessing their performance on tasks that tapped their ability to (1) use story grammar and role playing, (2) retell a wordless picture book, (3) read a predictable book, (4) retell an oral story, (5) sequence pictured story events, and (6) fingerpoint-read a nursery rhyme. Parent…

A study of the developmental patterns of reading proficiency of seven adult second language learners over a four-month period to determine the changes in their oral reading behavior and in their comprehension of written English is reported. The study looked specifically at oral reading and retelling. All subjects were beginning to low-intermediate…

A study investigated children's recall and representation for multiple episode stories differing in terms of goal structure. Subjects were 36 third and fifth grade students reading below grade level, and 48 students from the same grades who were identified as average readers. The students read or listened to stories containing embedded and…