Intended for parents, this booklet offers advice and suggestions for developing a child's self-expression and providing a supportive environment for reading experiences at home. Various sections of the book discuss the following: (1) giving love and warmth to your child, (2) reading with your child, (3) listening to your child, (4) talking with…

A study was conducted to explore preschool children's awareness of and responses to print and their concepts of reading and writing. Eleven children, aged three, four, and five years, were given three print awareness tasks in which they were asked to identify a common household product first by its complete label, then by the same label without…

Several conclusions about child language were drawn from the data collected during the Bristol longitudinal study, "Language at Home and at School": (1) the amount of speech that adults address to their children is significantly associated with the children's rate of progress; (2) although many topics are introduced by parents, an equal…

This booklet is one of a series of micromonographs on reading-related subjects that offers help to parents interested in stimulating reading habits in their children. Presented as a guide to developing a reading atmosphere in the home, the booklet suggests that parents begin with infant activities; teach their children through make believe; use…

As part of a series of publications reporting the promising practices gleaned from pre-elementary Right to Read programs, this manual is designed to provide pertinent information regarding young children and reading. It covers such topics as the skills necessary for reading acquisition, how children acquire these skills, and the importance of…

The purpose of this publication is to provide kindergarten teachers with the rationale, ideas, and activities necessary for implementing an experience-based language/prereading program in their classrooms. The various sections contain a rationale for using language experience activities; suggestions for classroom management of such activities; and…

The efficacy of a school district training parents to teach prereading skills to their four-year-old children through home-based learning activities was investigated. The method used to evaluate the effects of the experimental program was to test a sample of the experimental group and a control group upon matriculation to kindergarten in September…

The use of standardized instruments has demonstrated the ineffectiveness of traditional educational programs in providing optimum learning situations for large numbers of children with diversified backgrounds. Consequently, many new innovative programs have been designed and implemented for preschool children. However, it has become apparent that…

This working paper presents the background, justification, and development plan for a kindergarten program to identify and correct deficits in prereading skills. The program provides for individual differences in: (a) patterns of skill deficits, (b) rates of learning, and (c) degrees of assistance required. It is intended for optimal use in the…

Argues that wordless books allow prereading children to create their own stories, enhance vocabulary acquisition, help children develop "top to bottom" and "right to left" concepts, and promote observation, sequential, visual, and inferential thinking. Describes several ways to use wordless books. Includes bibliography of 36…

Study investigated the perspectives of parents who read aloud to their young children. Results indicate that outside information can increase parents' awareness of the importance of reading aloud to their children and can motivate them to do so. (MM)

In order to study the reading attitudes of preschoolers, 2,232 early childhood program participants from different ethnic groups were given the Preschool Reading Attitudes Scale. Factor analysis showed substantial loading in three categories: (1) Reading Books in General; (2) Reading Printed Material in School; and (3) Reading Books in the…

To examine changes in phonetic coding two age groups of 40 preschoolers were shown rhyming and nonrhyming letter sets. Recall was measured by oral free recall (testing item memory) and serial reconstruction (testing order memory). A large phonetic similarity effect was present in both groups with no developmental changes in the effect magnitude.…

Describes a parent education project that recognized the importance of educating parents so that they would be able to help their youngsters in early reading development. (HOD)

First-grade reading readiness and later academic achievement of children were studied in a program developed specifically for disadvantaged preschoolers. (MM)