The Read with Me project was undertaken to help disadvantaged parents establish reading as a family priority. Included among the program's target audience were families residing at a 30-day shelter for homeless people, parents in adult basic education (ABE) classes, parents associated with a program for children from disadvantaged home settings,…

Reading to young children offers them many benefits including a sense of security which comes from physical closeness to an adult. In addition, the child perceives the format of print, begins to assimilate the basics of story construction, develops a prior knowledge base which is an essential ingredient of comprehension, and receives the message…

A case study traces the evolution of "once-upon-a-time" in a child's classroom story writing, drawing upon data collected in a three-year study of writing development in an urban magnet school. The subject, Mitzi, is observed from kindergarten through second grade. The study assumes that stories are cultural discourse forms that serve…

To assess children's ability to draw inferences from selections of children's literature and to measure the significance of various selected factors to this ability was the problem of this study. Children (432) were evenly divided among grades 4, 5, and 6 and randomly divided at each grade level into two equal groups, one of which read the…

The purpose of this manuscript is to encourage the development of the communication skills of preschool children by introducing their parents to a number of learning activities suitable for implementation in the home. It is written to be used by an instructor who is working with preschool parents. The activities, which are designed to be…

This report contains excerpts and summaries from interviews and papers presented at the visual literacy conference. The interviews are with speakers and in general ask them to expand on an idea presented in their formal talk. For other speeches, the catalog description and/or an abstract is given. Although most of the abstracts are short, lengthy…

The content of books chosen independently by fourth, fifth, and sixth, graders was compared with the content of four selected basal reading texts at the same three grade levels. The selections of the children and from the texts were classified into twenty-one categories, and then the percentages of the children's choices within these categories…

Identifies resources to aid librarians in making material selections, including: discussion groups to review books; student and teacher recommendations; public library story hours and book review seminars; and professional association meetings. (CLB)

Argues that comprehension is a problem-solving activity and that different problem-solving schemata exist for different types of texts, both narrative and expository. Suggests that good comprehension occurs when there is a match between the author's schemata and that of the reader, creating a dialogue between the writer and the reader. (JK)

Presents a rationale for engaging in regular storytime and offers guidelines preschool teachers can use to conduct read-aloud sessions that support children's interactions with literature. Also lists questions for evaluating picture books for early childhood education and books that teachers can read aloud. (BB)

Describes outreach services that children's librarians can develop to help solve the problems of illiteracy and aliteracy. Highlights include story hours; cooperation with school library media specialists; outreach programs for day care or early childhood centers, family day care homes, low-income housing projects, and community centers; and…

A 5-year longitudinal study examined the relations among home literacy experience, language, and literacy development in a middle-class sample. Findings indicate that those with highest exposure to reading aloud at home demonstrated advantages in spelling, decoding, and alphabet knowledge through grade 3. Recommendations urge frequent home…

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…

This article looks closely at a subset of books about literacy in and out of school by analyzing images of children learning and struggling to learn to read in realistic fiction. There are several books in which characters wish to learn to read, worry about being poor readers, and work hard to learn to read. These books raise important questions…

Four case studies examined the effects of using taped books to teach reading to at-risk elementary school students in rural West Virginia. The study involved two kindergarten students who were identified as at risk for developing reading difficulties and two first-grade students who had been classified with a learning disability. The intervention,…