Facilitating children's emergent literacy using shared reading: A comparison of two models

This paper investigates early home literacy practices and their influence on preschool children's literacy and reading development. In particular, two recently developed Australian home literacy interventions are reviewed that were based on a parent shared reading and dialogic reading framework. While both interventions facilitated preschool children's reading development and parent involvement, each intervention had a different focus. One of the interventions was designed for children with language delays and it concentrated on motivating book reading. The second intervention was designed for children with a family history of reading disability, and this intervention concentrated more on children's alphabetical and phonological awareness development, along with home reading. The strategies used for both interventions have the potential to be incorporated into mainstream early childhood literacy education and tuition

Dutch home-based pre-reading intervention with children at familial risk of dyslexia

Children (5 and 6 years old, n = 30) at familial risk of dyslexia received a home-based intervention that focused on phoneme awareness and letter knowledge in the year prior to formal reading instruction. The children were compared to a no-training at-risk control group (n = 27), which was selected a year earlier. After training, we found a small effect on a composite score of phoneme awareness (d = 0.29) and a large effect on receptive letter knowledge (d = 0.88). In first grade, however, this did not result in beneficial effects for the experimental group in word reading and spelling. Results are compared to three former intervention studies in The Netherlands and comparable studies from Denmark and Australia

Early Intervention in the Home for Children at Risk of Reading Failure

Early identification of children who are at risk of developing specific reading disability has long been regarded as being crucial for successful remediation (Snow, Burns and Griffin, 1998). However, such identification must lead to immediate intervention if there is to be any benefit for the child. In addition, the intervention should be directly related to the weaknesses identified, well-grounded in theory, effective and easy to administer. The focus of the current study is on identifying children at-risk before the first years of formal schooling. The reasoning behind this is that such children are very capable of overcoming their disadvantages before formal schooling, with the assistance of their families (Fielding-Barnsley, 2000; Jordan, Snow and Porche, 2000). The intervention in this study was based on a method developed by Arnold and Whitehurst (1994), and Whitehurst, Arnold, Epstein, Angell, Smith and Fischel (1994) known as dialogic reading. Dialogic reading involves families reading with their children rather than to their children

Advancing literacy in Tasmanian primary schools

Abstract not available

Longitudinal Twin Study of Early Reading Development in Three Countries: Preliminary Results

We have initiated parallel longitudinal studies in Australia (Byrne, PI), the United States (Olson, PI), and Norway (Samuelsson, PI) of identical and fraternal twins who are being tested in preschool for prereading skills, and in kindergarten, first grade, and second grade for the development of early reading, spelling, and related cognitive skills. Comparisons of the similarities of identical and fraternal twins will reveal the relative influence of genetic, shared family environment, and nonshared environment on individual differences at and across different stages of development. Family and twin-specific environmental information is also being directly assessed through parent questionnaires and observations by testers. Most of the data collected so far have been from preschool twins (146 in Australia, 284 in the United States, and 70 in Norway). Preliminary analyses for the preschool cognitive measures showed reliable genetic influences on phonological awareness and several measures of memory and learning. In contrast, vocabulary, grammar, and morphology showed significant shared environment and negligible genetic effects. A print knowledge composite showed both genetic and shared environment influence