A study described and evaluated a program for improving emerging literacy skills to better prepare children for beginning reading instruction. The targeted population consisted of kindergarten children in a blue-collar, lower-income community located at the southwest border of a large midwestern city. The problem of limited emerging literacy…

Educators have known for years that children who come from homes where storybooks are read have an advantage over those children who are not read to. Research has shown that shared reading, reading aloud, making a variety of print materials available, and promoting positive attitudes toward literacy have a significant impact on children's literacy…

This study explored if and how the beliefs of emergent literacy teachers influenced their facilitation of parental reading at home. Due to the extent and findings of current research on the importance of parental reading in children's emergent literacy, one might expect that emergent literacy teachers would be cognizant of this knowledge and want…

Fifth Graders (N=626) from public, Catholic, Christian, and home schools reacted to values of forgiveness versus retribution in the two main versions of "Cinderella" by choosing which ending they preferred for themselves, for a 4-year old sister, and for a 4-year old brother. Girls preferred the forgiveness ending for themselves…

The purpose of this study was to determine if reading aloud to children regularly would have an effect on their motivation and desire to read independently. Subjects, 100 fourth and fifth grade students in Wayne, New Jersey, participated in the study. One fourth and one fifth grade class were read to on a daily basis for 30 minutes. The second…

This guide describes "Parent Power," a program designed to help parents help their children become better readers. The guide makes such suggestions as pre-reading the book before reading it to children; reading about a variety of subjects; and showing children the importance of reading by parents reading and modeling the reading process…

The practicum reported in this document provided an alternative method of teaching vocabulary to students characterized as disabled readers. The method was a naturalistic approach of reading stories aloud to students, combined with guided discussions before, during, and after the reading to develop critical thinking skills. A target group of 11…

Project Earlybird assists at-risk students to anticipate the upcoming classwork and be ready for the lessons when the teacher presents them. The project is a before/after school program in which elementary students in grades 2 through 5 are given extra help with reading, mainly using computers. Elements of the program include: (1) raising…

Parents can help their children master the skills needed to become good writers. While preschool pupils, in most cases, cannot do their own writing, the parents can: ask their children for ideas to include in letters to friends or relatives; write down, and then read back, ideas dictated by the child; read interesting library books to their…

A study examined whether the more inviting text structure of informational storybooks (compared to an information book) influences comprehension of scientific information. Ninety-six third-grade subjects were drawn from eight classrooms in four elementary schools in a mid-size metropolitan area in the southern United States. Within each class, six…

Building on one aspect of a large-scale longitudinal investigation, a study examined first graders' engagement with literature. Subjects, five Euro-American students (two males, three females), were videotaped during two 30-minute storybook reading sessions one week apart. During the reading session, child and adult sat side-by-side in an effort…

Results of two studies that investigated the effects of guest readers on the reading attitudes of second- and fifth-grade children in the Meridian (Mississippi) schools are presented. Twenty-nine second graders and 29 fifth graders participated. Local television personalities, school personnel, former teachers, and parents were among the guests…

This brochure discusses parents' involvement in their children's education. It is maintained that parent involvement in education is one of the most promising movements to have come out of the school reforms of the 1980s. Recent history of parent involvement in American schools; several American educators' ideas about parent involvement; and…

The inclusion of talk, written language, and body language are critically important in primary classrooms. Although reading and writing may be regarded as cognitive activities, they are embedded in a social/cultural milieu, and the practice of mechanical decoding as a necessary precedent to real reading is not pedagogically sound. A whole class…

This report describes and evaluates the first year of the "Parents Sharing Books" project, a parent outreach program for Indiana middle and junior high schools. The project focuses on increasing interaction between parents and middle school children with books that they read together, encouraging parents and children to share books and…