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Table of Contents

• Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children
• 100 Most Frequent Words in Books for Beginning Readers
• Helping Children Learn About Reading
• Examing the Transition into Kindergarten

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Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children

Controversies over how to teach reading have diverted attention from the most important factors affecting how a child learns to read.

Individuals and institutions, including government agencies, must move beyond counterproductive debates and take steps shown by research to be effective, says a National Research Council committee in its report Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children. Too many children are leaving American schools without the reading skills they need to get good jobs and fulfill the responsibilities of citizenship. As society has become increasingly technological, the demands for literacy have grown substantially, and the consequences for those who fall short have become more grievous.

Language-rich preschool environments, reducing the risk factors that increase the likelihood of reading problems, provision of excellent reading instruction, and intensive professional development for teachers are all important in helping children become successful readers. In addition, efforts to prevent reading difficulties need to be targeted at children with hearing, language, or cognitive difficulties and children from poor neighborhoods or whose parents had difficulty learning to read. Some children may require extra reading instruction, and accommodations for their disability may be necessary throughout their lives.

Elements of good teaching

Quality reading instruction in the primary grades is the single best defense against reading failure, overcoming even the effects of childhood backgrounds that increase the risk of reading difficulties.

Effective instruction requires that teachers focus on the relationships between letters and sounds, the process of obtaining meaning from print, and practice for fluency, the committee says. Ignoring any of these areas increases the possibility that reading will be delayed or impeded.

Research indicates that getting started in reading depends on knowing how to map the letters and spellings of words onto the sounds and speech units they represent. At the same time, teachers should develop students’ comprehension by building linguistic and conceptual knowledge beginning in the earliest grades, and fluency through rich opportunities to read.

The committee outlines steps that need to be taken to ensure that children in kindergarten through third grade learn to read well. It also notes that children with reading problems need to receive not different but more focused, more intense, and more individualized instruction. Schools with greater numbers of at-risk children should have extra resources to provide the instruction needed to prevent reading problems.

Preschool preparation

Children must arrive in first grade with strong language and cognitive skills and already motivated to learn to read. To build this foundation for reading, home and preschool settings should provide storytelling and book reading to stimulate verbal interaction and build vocabulary, opportunities for songs and word games that direct young children’s attention to the sound structures of spoken words, and other activities that highlight the relation between print and speech.

Families need affordable preschool opportunities that offer rich language and literacy environments, the committee says. Especially as more children from lower-income families enter group care as a consequence of welfare reform, the preschool opportunities available to these families must support the development of literacy.

Children who need extra support for early language and literacy development should be identified as soon as possible. Government agencies and educators should provide parents, pediatricians, and preschool professionals with guidelines regarding what children should be able to do and where to turn if there is concern that a child’s development is lagging.

Limited English proficiency

The abilities and needs of non-English speaking students vary greatly, as do the resources available in different communities to meet their needs. In general, however, hurrying these young children into reading in English without adequate preparation is counterproductive, the committee concludes. If feasible, children should be taught how to read in their native language while learning to speak in English, after which they can extend their skills to reading English.

Training and professional support

A well-designed classroom reading program delivered by a competent teacher can bring most primary grade students to the levels of reading proficiency expected in those grades. But many teachers do not have the training and skills needed to teach reading effectively. State certification requirements and teacher education curricula should be changed to ensure that all teachers understand how literacy develops in children and the role of instruction in optimizing that development in diverse groups of students.

Teachers need professional development that spans their training and careers to address reading instruction needs. In addition, every school should have access to a variety of reading specialists who can provide special instruction for children with reading difficulties.

Volunteer tutors can help by reading to children, giving children supervised practice in oral reading, and creating opportunities for enriching conversation, but they are unlikely to be able to deal effectively with children who have serious reading problems.

Contributions of research

Several issues warrant ongoing attention from researchers. Better assessment tools are needed to determine when children have reached reading goals, when they require extra help, and when their difficulties have been overcome. In addition, educators need better guidance on how to design literacy instruction for students with limited or no English proficiency, the role of holding students back a grade to prevent reading difficulties, and the specific attributes of effective classroom instruction and reading interventions.

However, remaining uncertainties should not delay the application of what is known. By building on the results of reading research, parents, teachers, policy-makers, and others can help children achieve the levels of literacy needed for success in today’s society.

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This report brief is copyrighted by the National Academy of Sciences and may be reproduced in its entirety, with no additions or alterations. The entire report (Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children, National Research Council, 1998) is available from the National Academy Press in Washington, DC, 800-624-6242, for $45.00 per copy plus $4.00 for shipping and handling. The study was funded by the U.S. Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services.

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100 Most Frequent Words in Books for Beginning Readers
by Elena Bodrova, Deborah J. Leong, & Dmitri Semenov
R.O.A.D. to Literacy; McREL (Mid-Continent Regional Educational Laboratory)

As young children begin to read their first books, teachers often use lists of frequent words to help children expand their reading vocabularies. The most common type of list is based on the frequency of words in books encountered by all readers or by all elementary school children from kindergarten through sixth grade (e.g., Dolch List or Instant Word List). While important guideposts for later learning, these lists may not reflect the types of words encountered by children as they first begin to read. Thus it would be a better investment of time if young children used frequent word lists that more closely matched the reading material that they would actually encounter. The list would then more directly influence early reading skills.

To examine whether or not the most frequent words encountered in early readers were the same as those found in these broader based lists, we conducted a survey of 1,000 books that were designed for this early instructional level. These books were typically labeled as pre-primer, early readers, first readers, Level 2.0 and below, and first primers. The books were given to us by the 11 book publishers that are listed at the end of this article. The criteria used for inclusion of a book in the current survey were the donation and/or loan of the book for input into the computer. The books used in the survey are representative of those adopted by schools for kindergarten and first grade.

The current survey is based on over 100,000 words. Of these, 5,264 were different words in 20,118 sentences. The ranking of words was based on the number of books in which the word was used, not the number of times the word was used. Because so many of these early books had repeated use of the same word in a sentence and also the repeated use of a specific sentence within the book, the sample would have become overly biased had a strict word count been used.

A preliminary statistical comparison was made between the 100 Most Frequent Words in Books for Beginning Readers and the other lists being used in most classrooms. A comparison between the Beginning Readers list and the Dolch List (Buckingham & Dolch, 1936) and the Instant Word List (Fry, Kress & Fountoukidis, 1993) found that there was less than a 75% overlap between the lists. A comparison with Gentry’s list (1991) of the most frequently written words by young writers revealed a similar discrepancy. Finally a comparison with a list of words found in standardized tests for the kindergarten level (Marzano, Kendall & Paynter, 1988) also revealed significant differences between the words listed and those found in beginning readers. We are currently doing a more detailed content analysis of the lists to determine the specific differences.

Copies of the 100 Most Frequent Words in Books for Beginning Readers are available free of charge, provided that the list is not altered in any way and that the original copyright notice is clearly visible on any copy of the document. Copies of the list are also available free of charge on the web at <http://www.mcrel.org/resources/literacy/road>. As new books are added to the data base, the current list will be updated on the Internet. Suggestions and questions can be sent to: dsemenov@mcrel.org.

References:

Buckingham, B. R., & Dolch, E. W. (1936). A Combined Word List. Boston, MA: Ginn and Company.

Fry, E. B., Kress, J. E., & Fountoukidis, D.L. (1993). The Reading Teacher’s Book of Lists (3rd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Gentry, J. R., & Gillet, J. W. (1991). Teaching Kids to Spell. Portsmouth, NH: Heineman.

Marzano, R. J., Kendall, J. S., & Paynter, D. E. (1988). The Analysis and Identification of Basic Words in Grades KB6. Aurora, CO: Mid-Continent Regional Educational Laboratory.

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Elena Bodrova, Deborah Leong, and Dmitri Semenov are researchers at McREL (Mid-Continent Regional Educational Laboratory) in Aurora, Colorado. They are currently working with the Early Childhood Leadership Team at the Colorado Department of Education to begin to identify milestones in the development of literacy in preschool to first grade, which will assist teachers and parents in knowing whether or not a child is moving at a reasonable rate towards the attainment of literacy standards in third and fourth grades. They may be reached at McREL, 2550 South Parker Road, Suite 500, Aurora, CO 80014-1678, (303) 337-0990 {voice}, (303) 337-3005 {fax}, and dsemenov@mcrel.org {e-mail}.

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List of Publishers and Book Series

ARO Publishing -- 21 books,

• Series – Funny Farm Books
• Levels – 10 word book, 20 word book, 30 word book

Creative teaching Press—24 books,

• Series – Science Series
• Levels -- Emergent Reader Level I, Emergent Reader Level II

Houghton Mifflin -- 18 books,

• Series – Watch me Read
• Levels – 1.1-1.5, 2.1, 2.2, K

Modern Curriculum Press -- 248 books,

• Series -- Ready Readers
• Levels -- Stage 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Mimosa Publication -- 24 books,

• Series -- Literacy 2000, Sets A, B, C

Newbridge -- 35 books

• Series -- Earth & Beyond, Food & Nutrition, Life Cycles, Physical Science, Plants, Systems, World of Animals

Richard C. Owen -- 21 books

Rigby -- 146 books

• Series – Literacy Tree, Animal Antics; Literacy Tree, Food and Fun; Literacy Tree, Let’s Get Together; Literacy Tree, Out and About; Literacy Tree, Safe and Sound; Literacy Tree, Times and Seasons; Literacy Tree, Welcome to My World; Literacy Tree, Work and Play
• New PM Story Books
• PM Starters One
• Smart Start, Sets C, D

Sundance -- 90 books

• Series -- Little red Readers, The Book Project, The Book Shop

Steck Vaughn -- 50 books

• Series -- Pair-It Books
• Levels -- Emergent Stage 1, Emergent Stage 2

Wright Group Publishing - 333 books,

    Sunshine Series (Levels – 1, K)

• Alphabet Books
• Classroom Library for Independent Reading, Sets E, F, G, H, I, J
• Community Books, Concept Books, Dictionary
• Fiction, Guided reading, Sets A, B, C, D
• Fiction, Independent Reading, Sets A, AA, B, BB, C, CC, D, DD
• Language Skills Books, Set E
• Nonfiction, Guided Reading, Sets A, B, C, D
• Read-Togethers, Read Alouds
• Rhymes to Read, Read Alouds
• Traditional Rhymes
• Traditional Stories, Read Aloud
• Word Books

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Helping Children Learn About Reading

Why read a book to an infant who does not yet know the meaning of a word or of words at all? Why sing to a toddler who cannot understand your song?

Both of these activities help children make connections between words and meaning. They also help to create a warm, safe environment for children and lead to a lifetime love of reading and learning.

Some parents assume that learning to read starts with memorizing the alphabet and sounding out words, but actually the fundamentals of reading begin much earlier. Adults lay the foundation for reading every day, when they point out objects and describe what they are doing while dressing an infant, grocery shopping with a toddler, or cooking with a preschooler.

The most important thing is that teaching children about reading becomes an activity that brings children closer to the caring adults in their lives. Here are some tips for families who want to help their children make connections between meaning and words.

Infants

• Talk or sing to your baby when you change his diaper, give him a bath, feed him lunch or join him in play.
• Introduce cardboard or cloth books with brightly colored pictures. Be aware that at this point, your baby might enjoy looking at, tossing, or chewing the books more than being read to!
• Help increase your baby’s vocabulary by playing "What’s that?" or "Where’s the teddy bear?" when enjoying books together.
• Point out words on signs at the park, at the zoo, or when walking or driving.
• As children begin to notice letters on blocks or other toys, name the letters for them. Read words aloud and explain what they mean.

Toddlers

• Reading stories before bed makes a good transition between active play and restful time. Toddlers may ask you to read their favorites repeatedly. They may begin to connect pictures with words, or fill in missing words if you hesitate.
• Let toddlers "write" shopping lists with you. They may want to watch you sort coupons and engage in other grocery store activities.
• Take short trips to new places and talk about what is happening around you. If possible, read together about similar events before-hand and again afterwards.
• Give children magnetic letters for the refrigerator, and begin spelling out words and names as toddlers are introduced to them.

Preschoolers

• Encourage preschool children to carry out the steps to written recipes, or read printed labels at the store.

• At four or five, children may begin to ask questions about the print they see in books. Books with labeled pictures help children to connect words and objects more easily.

• Play picture-card games with your child -- but remember, they may not always play by the rules at this age!

• Provide a variety of materials to encourage children to "play" at writing and reading -- checks or traffic tickets, menus or greeting cards.

Primary grade children

• Continue to read with your child, especially at bedtime, even if she has already learned to read.

• Visit the library on a regular basis to make books a regular part of children’s lives. Show children that you read books and magazines for information and enjoyment.

• Listen to the stories children write, as well as their jokes or riddles. Encourage them to write down their ideas.

• Play word games such as Boggle or Scrabble with your child.

Additional Resources

Schickedanz, J.A. 1994. Helping children learn about reading. Washington, DC: NAEYC.

National Black Child Development Institute. 1995. Young children and African American literature. Washington, DC: NAEYC.

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The above article is part of the series Early Years Are Learning Years, produced by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. Reproduction of this material is freely granted, provided credit is given to NAEYC. The organization may be reached at 1509 16th Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20036-1426; by telephone at (800) 424-2460; by fax at (202) 328-1846; and by e-mail <http://www.naeyc.org/naeyc>.

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Examining the Transition into Kindergarten

Initial results from an eight-page survey sent to nearly 11,000 public and private kindergarten teachers.

Kindergarten teachers say a major barrier to their helping more with children’s transitions into kindergarten is that class lists are generated too late, according to a new national survey by the National Center for Early Development & Learning (NCEDL).

If class lists were received earlier, teachers could more easily arrange meetings with parents and children before kindergarten begins, a recommended practice.

The 3,824 kindergarten teachers who responded to the survey were asked to select barriers to implementing additional transition practices from a list of 16 possible barriers. The three most commonly selected barriers were "class lists are generated too late" {53%}, "requires work in the summer that is not supported by salary" {45%}, and "a transition plan is not available in the school district" {41%}.

Teachers also indicated that although they believe a majority {52%} of children experience a "very successful, virtually no problems" entry into kindergarten, an estimated third of children {32%} have only "moderately successful entries" into kindergarten, and that a significant minority {16%} have a "difficult or very difficult entry, serious concerns, or many problems."

Of the 23 practices that were listed to help children make the transition to kindergarten, the most common ones all occurred after school had already started. The least common practices involved visiting the child’s home.

Three most common talk with parents after school starts {95%} letter to parents after school starts {88%} open house after school starts {81%}

Three least common visit to the home before school starts {9%} visit to the home after school starts {12%} a call to the child before school starts {13%}

The survey was sent in late 1996, and the data began to be analyzed in the spring of 1997. The survey provided information on the relative frequency of transition practices (before and after kindergarten starts), their perceived effectiveness by teachers, strategies that teachers use, and barriers that teachers see to using effective practices.

Complete results of the survey will be published later this year and were to be showcased in a symposium to be held this spring at meetings of the American Educational Research Association. The survey is one of five projects in NCEDL’s Kindergarten Transitions strand, which is examining how relationships within school, home, and community affect transition outcomes for children. Directors of the Kindergarten Transition strand are Martha Cox at the Frank Porter Graham Center and Robert Pianta at the University of Virginia. NCEDL is administratively housed at Frank Porter Graham.

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The above article, reprinted with permission, appeared in EARLY DEVELOPMENTS (Volume 2, No. 1, pp. 12B13, Spring 1998), a publication of the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Its editor, Loyd Little, may be reached by phone at 919-966-0867, or by e-mail at loyd_little@unc.edu.

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This page last updated: December 13, 2007