Follows the reading and writing development of a young boy from first through third grade. Shares how, through storytelling, he defined a sense of himself that retained a strong connection to his primary-years personality while reaching out confidently toward the world of upper elementary classrooms that he would now be facing. (MG)

Examines the predictive relations among symbolic play, the use of metalinguistic verbs and emergent literacy for preschool children. Describes different regression models for older and younger children and suggests that L.S. Vygotsky's and David Olson's theories of literacy are developmentally complementary. (KEH)

Discusses beginning writing activities that teachers can use with young children. Notes that preschoolers use writing systems that include drawings, scribblings, letterlike forms, words, and invented spelling. Suggests that teachers can use functional writing projects, such as greeting cards, lists, journals, address books, and pen pals, to…

An observational project on children's early literacy examined conditions necessary for growth in literacy; ways children evidence their need for personal control through literacy; the social functions of literacy for young children; and how children manipulate and play with language. (TJQ)

Describes and analyzes a young deaf girl's written products from the home setting from age three to seven. Examines her working hypothesis towards the forms of print and compares to those of young hearing children, revealing the diversity of paths all children take in becoming writers and readers. (SR)

Defines interactive writing and how it works. Recommends starting with the message sheet, then going on to written conversation and writing to a make-believe character. Identifies six benefits of interactive writing and asserts that interactive writing supports a basic human need of expressing one's thoughts and communicating them to others. (DLH)

This article discusses home/family factors related to the development of emergent literacy skills in preschool-age children and presents the Home Literacy Inventory for assessing children's non-print activities, reading activities, writing activities, and current reading and writing abilities. How the information can be used to develop…

"Ready, Set, Leap!"[R] is a comprehensive preschool curriculum that focuses on early reading skills such as phonemic awareness, letter knowledge, and letter-sound correspondence using multi-sensory technology that incorporates touch, sight, and sound. The "Ready, Set, Leap!"[R] curriculum is available in English and Spanish.…

Teachers now have a wide range of tools to help assess the beginning reading performance of kindergarten and first-grade children. However, validated procedures for assessing the beginning writing skills of kindergarten and first-grade children are less widely available. Learning to write, like learning to read, is a complex task. The ability to…

This article describes the Early Braille Readers Project, which provided a Mountbatten Pro Brailler and peripheral equipment to 20 kindergarteners, first-, and second graders in Texas. The project included training and support in the form of site visits and teacher training for both teachers of students with visual impairments and classroom…

This handbook is one of a series developed by the Texas Education Agency in response to requests to provide schools with additional information concerning the written composition portion of the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS). The handbook focuses on grades 1 through 3. Following an introduction, the handbook is in two parts. Part 1…

A ethnographic study examined the ways a young child's mind grasps the idea of the written word. The 5-year-old subject, called "Craig" in this article, had an unending thirst for print, read at the second grade level, and had fluent speech and vocabulary. Craig was followed over the previous 8-month period from the time he first gained…

A mainstreaming project was carried out in Toronto, Canada, in which four deaf students, ages 5 through 8, were integrated into a classroom of hearing students in grades 1 and 2, for 1 hour, 5 days a week, to participate in a writing program adapting the Graves-Giacobbe process writing model outlined in Donald Graves'"Writing Teachers and…

Intended to encourage teachers to examine their assumptions about teaching writing, this document containing a mixture of theory and practice deals with many aspects of writing. The chapters discuss (1) an examination of children's writing and some questions arising from the examination; (2) reasons for failure to write well, including the home…

Early reading and literacy have become the focus of policymakers, with a renewed emphasis on the early grades. This resource provides a guide to important and effective research-based reading programs. The guide's in-depth coverage analyzes and compares features, frameworks, tools, methods, and reform components for the following 17 major reading…