Kindergarteners (M age = 6;2) were exposed to novel spoken nonwords and their written forms within a storybook reading context. Following each of 12 stories, the children were required to spell and identify 12 novel written nonwords and then verbally produce and comprehend the spoken version of those words. Results indicated the children acquired…

The vast majority of word meanings are learned simply by extracting them from context rather than by rote memorization or explicit instruction. Although this skill is remarkable, little is known about the brain mechanisms involved. In the present study, ERPs were recorded as participants read stories in which pseudowords were presented multiple…

One focus of "Invitational Theory and Practice" is creating positive environments that summon each individual to "develop intellectually, socially, physically, emotionally, and morally" (Purkey & Novak, 2008). Children's literature is a rich resource for teachers and parents to focus on emotional and moral development. This…

This study investigated the effect of a large group narrative intervention on diverse preschoolers' narrative language skills with aims to explore questions of treatment efficacy and differential response to intervention. A quasi-experimental, pretest/posttest comparison group research design was employed with 71 preschool children. Classrooms…

When readers experience narratives they often encounter small mysteries--questions that a text raises that are not immediately settled. In our experiments, participants read stories that introduced characters by proper names (e.g., "It's just that Brandon hasn't called in so long"). "Resolved" versions of the stories specified the functions those…

This study evaluated the effects of Adapted Reciprocal Teaching (ART) on the receptive and expressive flight-word vocabulary of 1st-grade students. During ART, classroom interactions produced narrative contexts within which students assumed responsibility for applying new flight words in personally meaningful ways. Students in the control group…

The study examined the effectiveness of a "story map," a questioning technique (Beck & McKeown, 1981) for improving students' understanding of literature. Though the story map idea was widely adopted as a student-initiated strategy, the original story map--a teacher-generated, postreading questioning framework--was never empirically tested. This…

The authors discuss the 19 individual studies included in chapter 4 (shared story reading interventions) of the report of the National Early Literacy Panel (NELP) and offer more nuanced conclusions than the report's authors do. They also emphasize the need for more comprehensive approaches to shared story reading in preschool than those found in…

This article investigates the contribution of maternal mediation in storybook reading, socioeconomic status (SES), and home literacy environment (HLE) to children's literacy level in kindergarten and first grade in Israeli Arabic-speaking families. A total of 109 kindergarten children and their mothers participated. Children's literacy level was…

The "Read Naturally[R]" program is a supplemental reading program that aims to improve reading fluency, accuracy, and comprehension of elementary and middle school students using a combination of texts, audio CDs, and computer software. The program uses one of four products that share a common fluency-building strategy: "Read…

Sharing high-quality storybooks and nonfiction books not only is enjoyable for young children and teachers--it is also a powerful way to build crucial literacy skills. This engaging guide provides effective strategies for selecting books and using read-alouds to develop children's oral language, vocabulary, concepts of print, alphabet knowledge,…

To examine European American parents' racial socialization, mothers (n = 84) were videotaped while reading 2 race-themed books to their 4- to 5-year-old children and completed surveys concerning their racial attitudes and behaviors. Children completed measures of their racial attitudes and both groups (mothers and preschoolers) predicted the…

The central question of the present study was whether there are differences between children with Asperger Syndrome (AS), children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and healthy controls (HC) with respect to the organization of narratives and their verbalization of internal states. Oral narrations of a wordless picture book…

We used an off-line story continuation task and an online ERP reading task to investigate coreferential processing following sentences that portrayed transfer-of-possession events as either ongoing or completed, using imperfective and perfective verb aspect (e.g., Amanda was shifting/shifted some poker chips to Scott). The story continuation task…

The current study compares the effects of two shared storybook reading (SSR) interventions on language and emergent literacy skills of low-income preschoolers. The control intervention targeted language and print awareness, skills for which there is strong evidence of the effect of SSR. The experimental intervention added a focus on phonological…