Considers how reading and writing experiences gained during the preschool period have enormous effect on children's first learning to read and write. Initiates a cross-cultural dimension to the subject matter from an empirical paradigm. Provides some evidence that emergent literacy is extensible to experiences regardless of linguistic forms. (SG)

Finds that Japanese fifth graders' naming speed was a good indicator of the automaticity of the lexical access for both syllabaries and morphograms, but that skilled/less-skilled differences in vocalization latencies were greater for real words than for pseudowords for both hiragana and kanji. Discusses the applicability of C. A. Perfetti's verbal…

Finds that the relationship established between a high school content-area teacher and her students motivated them to engage in literacy activities and that students responded positively to the strategies she taught, although they did not transfer strategies to other content classes. Notes that this teacher-student relationship illustrates how…

Investigates the influence of four types of predictions on the story understanding of sixth graders. Asks prediction questions, prediction plus justification questions, prediction plus review questions, or no questions. Analyzes retellings to determine information percentage included from original story. Indicates that differences in what students…

Gives children (ages 5+ to 9+) four tests of phonological skill to investigate relationships between these measures and their predictive relationship with reading and spelling ability. Finds performance at phonemic segmentation, rhyme sound categorization, and alliteration sound categorization improved with age, but all groups performed onset-rime…

Explores whether either of two sorts of individual work with parents in reading expository texts to their third-grade children would help children's understanding of new texts. Suggests that work with parents which specified how to highlight main ideas and details had moderately positive effects, while nonspecific work with parents had no similar…

Although converging evidence favors fostering phonemic segmentation and phonic decoding knowledge in the primary grades, there is little agreement on best ways to accomplish these goals. The well-documented importance of teacher expertise is often ignored. Administrators evaluating reading programs should exercise considerable skepticism and…

Reprints a classic article originally published in this journal in October 1973, which argues that the problems vernacular-dialect-speaking students suffer in school are not the direct result of so-called dialect interference but rather the result of educators' negative attitudes (based on deficit theory) toward learners who speak vernacular…

Considers the nature of joint (parent-child) pre-school activities in the home, and their potential to contribute to the development of early reading skills. Assesses children on various aspects of phonological awareness, and their receptive vocabulary and short-term memory. Finds that children who engaged in a variety of pre-school, parent-child…

Compares a range of reading-related abilities in two groups of college freshmen with higher and lower reading comprehension abilities. Indicates that abilities that appear to relate to reading comprehension include recognition of the order of phonemes in spoken syllables, recognition of words that are good semantic and syntactic fits for sentence…

Investigates the reading process as it pertains to readers taking the Degrees of Reading Power (DRP) assessment. Examines this process through analyses of readers' eye movements. Concludes that the DRP is not an accurate measure, or even a modest approximation of, the reading comprehension process. (SG)

Uses two formulas developed for Spanish language text to analyze 9 stories that were read by 36 Spanish-speaking second graders with limited English proficiency. Finds that the Spanish readability formulas only weakly predicted student performance, indicating the need to pursue broader, qualitative indices of difficulty for Spanish text. (SG)

Demonstrates the wide variability among children learning to read and explores the consequences of this variability for reading instruction. Shares some examples to demonstrate that variability. Demonstrates what happens when very different children read identical text. Describes a way to organize classrooms that will better accommodate the…

Aims to determine the cognitive processes of adult literacy acquisition. Assesses the progress of 59 women in an intensive adult literacy program in Turkey. Finds that after only 90 hours of instruction, there were significant improvements in letter and word recognition, phonological awareness, and spelling levels. Notes results are consistent…

Addresses the question of the role of general speed/rate of processing in reading impairment in adults. Compares 95 adults varying in word-recognition ability. Shows significant and pervasive speed/rate differences among groups, as well as differences in accuracy performance. (SG)