Examines a program in Denmark that uses metalinguistic games and exercises to stimulate preschool children's discovery of the phonological structure of language. Concludes that phonological awareness can be developed outside the context of the acquisition of an alphabetic writing system, and that this awareness facilitates subsequent reading and…

Study results do not demonstrate that early reading is made possible by precocity in speech-sound segmentation, blending, or discrimination ability, but that the complex skill involving the manipulation of sounds in temporal order may be more closely related to early reading ability. (AEA)

Reports on a study that examined patterns and interrelationships in the development of print awareness over the preschool years with results indicating that preschool children do not acquire such skills and concepts in a fixed order. (MKM)

The development of four-year-old children's knowledge of letters and printed words was studied to determine if preschool children begin reading, and if so, how. A natural hierarchy of knowledge was noted. (MKM)

Investigates young children's literacy activity within play settings designed to reflect authentic literacy contexts in children's real-world environment. Finds that, in the course of play activities, children demonstrated declarative knowledge about literacy (e.g. names of literacy objects), procedural knowledge, and strategic knowledge. Suggests…

Examines the effects on six children's literacy play and intellectual development of coaching their teenage mothers to use selected cues in playful literacy explorations. Finds increases in the use of interfactional cues following intervention, with scores declining to different degrees during transfer and maintenance phases. Finds that children's…

Finds sequences of "episodes" that included various reading and talk strategies within emergent reading done by preschoolers. Indicates that children accumulate a repertoire of strategies, rather than abandoning old strategies as they develop new ones. Reveals several book, setting, and reading factors that contributed to changing strategies…

Investigates the kind of print-related knowledge that emergent readers must possess to learn to point to the words of a text as they recite it from memory (fingerpoint-reading) and to remember information about the print from this activity. Reveals that different types of print knowledge facilitate different aspects of fingerpoint-reading. (SR)