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Reading to Pre-schoolers: Models of Tutoring

Stuart McNaughton
Abstract: 

There has been a lot of propaganda in favour of reading to children. All cultural and socio-economic groups studied in this research read a great deal with their children, but with different styles, expecting different outcomes and reflecting their cultures.

Journal issue: 

Reading to Pre-schoolers

Models of Tutoring

Stuart McNaughton

Reading to children at home is alive and well. This research found families in all socio-economic and cultural groups were reading to their children. But they do so in different styles, expect different outcomes, and reflect their own cultures.

A Samoan adolescent and an English girl reflect on different forms of expertise with books:

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do; once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, ‘and what is the use of a book,’ thought Alice, ‘without pictures or conversations?’

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

I am good at prayers because, since I was a tiny boy, my father he get me and my brothers and my sisters and my cousins for to learn how to make the prayers. He also get us for to read from the Holy Book until now I am sixteen years old and am an expert in the reading of the book.

Exam Failure Praying. Albert Wendt, 1986, p.54

The family activity of reading books reveals a great deal about what matters to people. And so it also tells us about the education they seek. This set item is concerned with understanding how expertise in reading storybooks develops. It uses a contemporary psychological model of tutoring (scaffolding) and checks if this helps us understand what is really going on in different socio-cultural groups.

To give you the first conclusion first: some families in Aotearoa/New Zealand read storybooks with their preschoolers in ways that are at odds with the way the theories say are the most effective. They do not, of course, do this perversely, nor out of ignorance. They have different purposes for text than those who invented the theories. You can see that Alice expects to see pictures and hear talk in a narrative, but the 16-year-old Samoan boy in Albert Wendt’s story takes pride in being an expert in ‘the reading of the book.’

Storybook reading : tutors and scaffolds

Studies of how reading storybooks helps children’s development have yielded two results. The first is that a standard tutorial pattern has been identified. The second is that not all socio-cultural groups use the tutorial pattern exactly the same way.

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The standard description of interactions between readers and preschoolers goes back at least to work by Wood, Bruner and Ross in 1976. They described the tutor as providing scaffolding. That metaphor has been extensively applied and elaborated in further studies, particularly of the development of language and literacy.

In general, scaffolds are described as providing tutorial support which is adjustable and temporary In the reading of storybooks with children at home the selection and use of storybooks themselves is a form of support. In addition, dynamic support has been seen in the conversations which are interspersed during the reading of the text. The reader structures the interactions using, and responding to, questions and comments. The function of this structuring is to yield conversational exchanges which are shared ways of constructing meanings from written narratives. The tutor models, directs and prompts.

The tutor adjusts his or her role according to the way the child develops meanings. Within repeated readings of books, and of different books, support for the child shifts. The tutor moves the responsibility for learning-how-to-interact-with-text from himself/herself, to the child. The expert (reader/tutor) is aware that the novice (child/learner), through personal constructive processes labelled ‘internalization’ or ‘appropriation’, is able to handle parts of reading on his or her own, and removes the scaffolding which is no longer necessary.

Scaffolds enable expert and novice, parent and child, to share commonly held ideas about what they are aiming to do; they know about each other’s focus or intentions. This common goal can be seen developing in the negotiations during conversations and in the success of conversational exchanges.

Tutorials which ‘scaffold’ expertise in family language and literacy are said to be, ‘engaging the learner in activities which are mature social and cultural uses of narrative texts.’ This means that children are engaged in something that in itself is not isolated, fragmented and cut loose from everyday uses. The reading of storybooks is, in this way, like adult uses of written language. To concentrate on letter-sound associations, however, would not resemble the ordinary, adult, every-day use of books. An important feature is that scaffolds are socialization processes.

Tutorials which have these features are supposed to be effective for acquiring expertise in general, and particularly effective for the development of early literacy skills.

Storybook reading: differing socio-cultural settings

The details of the tutorial/scaffolding model come from intensive case studies and group studies, mostly of white middle-class families. This has led researchers to conclude that:

Children almost never encounter an oral rendering of the text of the book in a storybook-reading situation. Instead, the words of the author are surrounded by the language of the adult reader and the child (ren) and the social interaction among them. During this interaction the participants co-operatively seek to negotiate meaning through verbal and nonverbal means.

Sulzby and Teale, 1991, p. 733.

Studies of low SES families in which storybook reading has been a regular family activity describe the interaction of adults and children as more restricted with a more limited focus on meanings and less co-operative dialogue. However, researchers who have deliberately introduced narrative texts into the literacy practices of black low SES families have noted the similarity between subsequent interactions and those in mainstream families.

Warning: there is a major assumption underlying these descriptions of tutoring and scaffolding and the research among low SES and black families: it is that there is a right way to read storybooks to children. This unacknowledged belief is that scaffolded storybook reading, with a focus on narrative meanings and presented in a collaborative style, is the appropriate and most effective way to socialize children into expertise with written language. What follows this assumption is the conclusion that those families who do not read with their children in this manner are socializing their children inadequately. This is supported by evidence which suggests that frequent storybook reading which uses the standard pattern is related to higher achievement levels in learning to read at school.

Three studies of storybook reading

At the end of this item we will return to discuss whether the underlying assumption is safe or dangerous. Before this, three studies of storybook reading in different families in Aotearoa/New Zealand are discussed. In these studies we have found the presence of substantially different patterns of tutoring and scaffolding. The extent and nature of those differences has caused us to question the usefulness of the standard model. A modified model of tutorial processes is proposed.

Study One (Phillips and McNaughton)

Ten families responded to advertisements in suburban libraries and bookshops for families interested in books and book reading. These families were Pakeha (Pakeha means people of European, particularly British descent). The incomes and occupations placed them in the top two SES groups in Aotearoa/New Zealand. In each family there were two adults and 1 or 2 children, and the mother was the major caregiver. The 6 boys and 4 girls were between 3 and 41/2 years old.

The families read frequently - on average 3 books a day (87 in 28 days). Most of the books (95 percent) told a story. Both readers (predominantly the mothers) and the children initiated these sessions but it was usually the child who chose the book to be read.

After the first 28 days we introduced the family to books we chose. They were unfamiliar but similar to the ones they usually read. This enabled us to watch what was going on, particularly the tutorial processes, with standard texts.

Reading a book usually meant the parent reading the text, but not straight through; the reading was punctuated by verbal exchanges (‘insertions’). Infrequently parents made verbal and non-verbal invitations to read and the child attempted to read. This occurred so infrequently that it was not included in the resulting analysis. We worked out what the goals of the reader and the child were by analysis of the insertions; there were several types.

Narrative insertions focused on information relevant to, or consistent with, the events and the goals of the narrative. In Example 1, the reader’s comment in reference to an illustration ‘Goodness! He’s a big frog’, and the child’s question later, ‘I wonder what those frogs are looking at him for?’ are the beginning of a narrative insertion.

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Print insertions focused on concepts about print including references to letters, words and pages as well as attributes of books and print. The reader saying, in Example 2, ‘First you can show mummy where the front of the book is?’, begins a print insertion.

Other Book Insertions included questions and comments that were book related but not focused on the narrative or on concepts about print. There was an example during the same session as in Example 1 - a question about an illustration unrelated to the narrative: ‘Mum. I run over to those trees?’

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Other Insertions were those insertions unrelated to book reading; typically to do with child management and interruptions to reading.

Results and analysis

Counting the insertions showed clearly that the focus for both the readers and the children was overwhelmingly on the narrative structure of the texts they read. Of the 647 insertions analysed, 86 percent of them were focused on the narrative.

The pattern of interaction between parent and child fits exactly the standard scaffolding model: reader and child collaborated in exchanges to construct meanings for the text. The preschooler participated as a full conversational partner in setting the topic.

Core features of the scaffolding model are found in Example 1. The child was engaged in a form of a mature task (reading for meanings) which was valued and functional in the family setting. Among other resources these families had on average over 450 adults’ and children’s books in the home, and the parents estimated that they spent over 2 hours in reading and writing activities per day.

The tutorial support was adjustable and temporary. In Example 1, the mother first focused the child’s attention on the central narrative problem in the story: the giant frog has drunk all the water and the other animals have to find a way to get it back. By the last reading the child took responsibility for inserting dialogue at this point, also focusing on the problem. In the ensuing conversation the mother’s part in the dialogue supports, through prompts, the child’s articulation of the problem: I think… well… he’s eating all their water.’

Quantitative analyses showed that in the first readings the adults concentrated on clarifying the narrative, and over time reduced their emphasis, as the children more often initiated this clarifying talk. The reader then shifted the focus towards making links with what was coming next. The children’s self initiated questioning and checking showed the development of self regulation.

Study Two (McNaughton and Ka’ai)

A second study, involved families from different socio-cultural groups. Would the same tutorial/scaffolding model apply?

We began not by looking for families but by finding preschoolers who looked like becoming good readers at school. Older sisters and brothers helped find these children. Twelve families are described here. We audiotaped samples of books being read when the children were aged between three and four years. The families identified themselves as Maori (3), Pakeha (6) and Samoan (3). Maori, Samoan and Pakeha researchers worked with them. Incomes and occupations placed them in socioeconomic levels 4 and 5 (the New Zealand SES index has 6 levels). The families had two parents (and sometimes more adults from an extended family) and three or more children. The Samoan families were fully bilingual.

Reading and writing for a range of purposes were highly valued adult activities. Reading books was a daily occurrence. But in the majority of the Maori and Samoan households reading was typically done in groups of 3 or more, with other members of the family such as an older sibling or an auntie still at school often taking the role of reader. Eleven of the 12 families read story books. But in 7 families other books, including church texts, were selected more often for reading.

The standard tutorial pattern was present. The majority of insertions (60 percent of total insertions), and subsequent exchanges, had readers and children collaborating in constructing meanings from the text. But on some occasions a different form of interaction took place. These are a type of language routine which we called performance routines.

Performance routines occurred when part of the text was repeated by the child. On these occasions (16 percent of the insertions and routines) the reader indicated, through intonation patterns and pauses, that a model had been provided and the child’s task was to imitate. These performance routines were even more noticeable on texts that were not storybooks. Examples of both types of interactions are shown in Example 3. They come from a book reading session in a Maori family. A storybook was read collaboratively (all 13 insertions had a narrative focus). However, a cousin’s school book (a beginning reader) was read using performance routines on every line of text.

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When the readers and children were following performance routines the tutoring they gave did not have the characteristics of the standard scaffolding model. The focus was different: it was on accurate rendering of the text, and it was not obviously collaborative.

The storybook reading showed that these families, particularly the Maori and Samoan families, could read with textual dexterity. They could do it in ways recommended by schools as educationally sound. But they selected a wider range of books than the high SES families in the previous study and, most importantly, they could shift the way they interacted within and across texts.

Study Three (Wolfgramm)

This study is of a more homogeneous group of families. Eight Tongan families, permanent residents in New Zealand, who all attended one church, were contacted through personal networks. They identified their families as Tongan (‘Mo’ui Fakatonga’). Their occupations placed them at level 4 and 5 on the New Zealand SES index. Adults other than parents, as well as nieces and nephews, lived in five households. There were 2 to 5 children in the families, one of whom in each family, a 3- or 4-year-old, was the focus of our attention.

Four families read daily with the pre-schooler. The other four families read three times a week. In four of the families one person consistently read, in the other families young aunts and older siblings also assumed the role. The book reading settings were all multiparty but with an adult caregiver present.

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All 8 families read storybooks and in 5 families other books too. Five families supplied audiotapes in which at least two storybook readings occurred over a week. In one family there were no insertions or performance routines: the reader read without interruptions.

In four families, 3 ‘stages’ of tutoring were observed; these employed only performance routines and are shown in Example 4. In the initial stage the reader demonstrated a part of the text and the child imitated. In the second stage children read much of the text by themselves and hesitations or misreadings were repaired by the reader. In the third stage the whole text was performed alone. There were examples from three families of preschoolers reading texts entirely by themselves.

What we learnt about performance tutorials and scaffolding

Some families in Aotearoa/New Zealand use a tutorial pattern which does not fit the standard scaffolding model. Some families practise this relatively exclusively. Others are pedagogically dexterous, shifting between two major forms, each of which appears to have distinct goals. If the ‘mainstream’ Pakeha children in Study 1 could be described as apprenticed to comprehension, then children in Studies 2 and 3 reading storybooks as a performance were apprenticed also to verisimilitude.

This non-standard tutorial is not simple: it shares most of the core features of other effective tutorials. For example, we saw very effective tutorial structures being created, structures which were both adjustable and temporary, as they should be. The support afforded by a complete demonstration of the text could be systematically reduced, (and re-applied if necessary) depending on the child’s growing control over the text. As a consequence, responsibility for accurate performance shifted to the child. There was a shared focus with no confusion over what was expected, even by siblings and other family members. Some families (in the second study) could shift, seemingly with ease, between the two forms of tutorial.

However, it is more difficult to see ‘self-regulation’ developing during performance tutorials. In mainstream book reading, you hope to see checking, reflection and inquiry developing; these are not parts of the performance activity. As you become an expert performer you have to monitor yourself to prevent inaccuracy, but as a novice performer you have to limit creativeness.

Performance tutorials, pedagogy and culture

When the Study 3 children were learning to read out loud, accurately, through the teaching style and scaffolding we have called performance tutorials, they were busy with a mature task which both expressed cultural values and constructed cultural values. Cultural messages are, of course, multifaceted, and only limited observations can be made here. Similarly, there are important differences within families and between groups of families, and they can not be treated in depth here.

Authority

Under some conditions the performance tutorial form may be a preferred way of teaching for Maori. In times gone by rote learning and memorisation were key instructional devices, especially for the essential shared knowledge of the tribe contained in genealogies, songs and narratives.

Maori puukenga (knowledgeable experts) set unfashionable store by memorisation and rote learning. Nowadays… these learning sessions follow a similar procedure, with variations, repeating each name or phrase a couple of times, adding the next, repeating again from the beginning, adding the next, repeating again, and so on to the end. Some ‘teachers’ using this method give little or no explanation of the content until the words have been mastered; others discuss meaning at intervals during the memorising, arguing that it is easier to remember what is understood. … it is clear that rote learning is not an end in itself but the first step towards the goal of meaningful performance. … knowing which to use and when, and that depends on knowing the background, being able to size up the situation, and to make the right choice.

Metge, 1984

In an oral culture the accuracy of oral texts and a stress on the preservation of knowledge are central concerns. It is also linked to a principle that knowledge is precious and to be treasured. This sense of guardianship and protection reinforces the value of representing knowledge accurately and without embellishment.

For Samoan families written texts reflect a set of values associated with the authority of church teachings and a strong respect for the church and for schooling. Early literacy experiences and resources are promoted and channelled by the pastor school (in Samoa) and by Sunday school sponsored activities in Aotearoa/New Zealand. The reading of texts also represents the authority of elders, and supports adherence to significant religious beliefs.

In daily reading from the Bible and family devotions (lotu) which are common in Samoan families can be seen the purposes of religious beliefs. But there are also others, including the cohesion of the family, and its commitment to shared beliefs, roles and responsibilities in the faa’samoa (the Samoan way). At a family’s lotu there may be grandparents, parents, children and grandchildren. The performance tutorial is used when younger members are taught biblical passages. During lotu the leader (who reads first) has a position of prestige. Asking younger family members to take over the role of leading the devotion marks a stage in their lives but is also fulfilling the older members’ responsibility for nurturing the younger ones (including aiding their reading development) and as a way of telling them that they are cared for.

The authority of texts and the presence of performance tutorials is associated with religious values in Tongan families too. For example, the performance tutorial is a standard form used in Sunday Schools to learn hymns and church texts. The Tongan children in Study 3 were observed learning hymns, bible verses and articles of faith at their Sunday School. Performance tutorials were used in these activities. A segment of one such tutorial, part way through the learning of a new hymn, is shown in Example 5.

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The role of the individual

Important views of both family roles and the nature of literacy are seen in the way book reading sessions are carried out. All book reading in the Tongan families involved more than one other person. Older brothers and sisters, aunties and female cousins were part. By contrast, even though seven of the ten pakeha middle-class families in Study 1 had two or more children, only a third of the sessions in 28 days involved more than one reader and the preschooler. In all of the Maori and Samoan families in Study 2 there were examples of multiparty sessions while in only two of the pakeha families was this the case, despite there being older siblings.

Group learning is a preferred pedagogical mode for Maori. However, this does not exclude personal learning interactions; these can be seen occurring in group settings and shared activities. But the development of individual expertise carries responsibilities: for Maori, knowledge is a group possession, does not belong to the individual and is to be used in the service of the group. Part of whanaunga-tanga [familiness] is the relationship tuakana-teina — an older sibling or more expert member of the group takes responsibility for the needs of a younger or less expert member.

Similarly, in Samoan society older siblings and extended family are often expected to take immediate responsibility for looking after the needs of a younger child, at times instead of a parent. This carries meanings about the status of childrearers, reflecting values associated with the priority of familiness, including loyalty to the extended family unit.

In Tongan families similar principles are at work in who reads to the preschooler. In traditional society as soon as a child is weaned and becomes less reliant on his or her mother, older children in the family take charge. The value of this responsibility within the group is derived from the principle of ‘Fatongia’ (the Tongan way). Older extended family members have a role to care for the younger.

Is there a best way of reading with preschoolers?

As the examples have shown there is not one ‘best’ way. It depends what you are trying to do. Contrast these two: (1) the mainstream parent preparing the child for mainstream schooling and, along the way, instilling attitudes to life — an emphasis on independence and a personal focus; (2) the Tongan family preparing the child to take part in worship and, along the way, instilling attitudes to life — it is a family affair.

However, the tutorials and scaffolding for both cultures can be carried out with flair, or rather badly or somewhere in between. Different configurations will have their own internal criteria for effectiveness. Tutorials can be well or poorly implemented to achieve the purposes of the family’s literacy practices and more general socialization goals. For example, the degree of overt collaboration and the coherence of the questions and comments in collaborative participation might determine the development of comprehension strategies for narrative texts. In directed performance tutorials the clarity and chunking of the model may determine the speed of acquisition of accurate performance.

Why has the view that the best sort of pre-school reading is reading-for-meaning-in-stories been so strongly supported? Literacy development often has been assumed to follow a fixed unitary sequence dictated by universal stages or constructed through a core set of concepts. In either case, development is seen as moving inexorably towards a final state defined by school forms of literacy. Research evidence supports the argument that schema for narrative structures and comprehension strategies develop from collaborative participation. Limited storybook reading, as well as infrequent experience of collaborative participation in storybook reading, has been associated with problems in the development of literacy at school. For these sorts of reasons book reading experiences which are not like mainstream ways come to be seen (explicitly or implicitly) as non-functional or inadequate.

However, no child nowadays is taught in just one way — the family, the school, the television, and the sports club may all teach in different ways and all affect the child’s development. Some forms of literacy certainly carry more ‘cultural capital’ in an educational system than others. For example, in Aotearoa/New Zealand, schools build upon expertise in reading texts for narrative meanings, rather than expertise in recitation. But as the Study 2 examples show, people can be at home in different cultures and literacies.

The challenge, given that it is important also to become expert in the comprehension and enquiry oriented literacy of the school, is to create bridges and foster dexterity. We need to recognise the strengths and capabilities of all children as they make the transition to school, and to build on these.

Notes

Dr Stuart McNaughton is an Assistant Professor of Education and member of the Research Unit for Maori Education, Education Department of the University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand.

The ideas and studies in this set item have been presented in several papers in journals and in particular in a paper presented at the Biennial Conference of the Society for Research in Child Development, New Orleans, March 1993. They are also to appear in more detail in the forthcoming book

Kohl de Oliviera, M. and Valsiner, J. (Eds.)(1994) Literacy in Human Development, Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

The author would like to acknowledge, with thanks, the families with whom the researchers worked, and the New Zealand Ministry of Education which funded some of the research.

The two quotations at the beginning are from

Carroll, L. (1986) The complete illustrated works of Lewis Carroll. London: Chancellor Press, page 17.

Wendt, A. (1986) Exam Failure Praying. In The birth and death of the miracle man : a collection of short stories. New York: Viking, p. 54.

That not all socio-social groups use the tutorial pattern in exactly the same way is noted in

Sulzby, E. and Teale, W. (1991) Emergent literacy. In R. Barr (Ed.) Handbook of reading research, Vol. 2, New York: Longman.

The standard description of interactions between readers and preschoolers goes back at least to

Wood, D., Bruner, J. and Ross, G. (1976) The role of tutoring in problem solving, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, Vol. 17, pp. 89-100.

Elaboration of the scaffolding metaphor can be found in

Cazden, C. (1988) Classroom discourse. Portsmouth: NH: Heinemann.

and

Rogoff, B. (1990) Apprenticeship in thinking : cognitive development in social context. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

and

Wood, D. (1989) How children think and learn. London: Basil Blackwell.

For the ideas of internalisation and appropriation see Rogoff, above.

That tutorials, as first described, are supposed to be effective in acquiring expertise, particularly in literacy, is maintained in Cazen, Rogoff, Sulzby & Teale, Wood, above, and also

Tharp, R. & Gallimore, R. (1988) Rousing minds to life: teaching, learning and schooling in social context, NY: Cambridge U. Press.

A study of low SES families with more restricted interaction is, for example,

Heath, S.B. (1982) What no bedtime story means : Narrative skills at home and at school, Language in Society, Vol. 11, pp. 49-76.

Note, however, that in one study co-operative exchanges were infrequent. See

Pellegrini, A.D., Perlmutter, J.C., Galda, L. and Brody, G.H. (1990) Joint book reading between black Head Start children and their mothers, Child Development, Vol. 61, pp. 443-453.

The evidence that frequent storybook reading following the standard pattern is related to higher achievement levels can be found in Sulzby and Teale, referenced above.

Study 1 can be found described in detail in

Phillips, G. and McNaughton, S. (1990) The practice of storybook reading to preschool children in mainstream New Zealand families, Reading Research Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 196-212.

Study 2 can be found described in more detail in

McNaughton, S. and Ka’ai, T. (1990) Two studies of transitions : socializations of literacy and Te hiringa take take : Mai i Te Kohanga Reo ki te kura. Report to the New Zealand Ministry of Education.

Study 3 can be found described in more detail in

Wolfgramm, E. (1991) Becoming literate : The activity of book reading to Tongan preschoolers in Auckland. Unpublished Master of Arts thesis, University of Auckland.

That performance tutorials may be preferred by Maori as a way of teaching is explained in, and the quotation is from,

Metge, J. (1984) Learning and teaching : he tikanga Maori. Wellington: New Zealand Department of Education.

That in Samoan culture the reading of text represents the authority of the elders and supports religious beliefs is discussed in

Duranti, A. and Ochs, E. (1986) Literacy instruction in a Samoan village. In B.B. Schieffelin and P. Gilmore (Eds.) The acquisition of literacy : ethnographic perspectives. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

A description of a family lotu can be found in

McNaughton, S. (In press) Patterns of emergent literacy: processes of development and transition. Oxford University Press.

The tuakana-teina relationship is explained more fully in

Hohepa, M., Smith, G.H., Smith, L.T. and McNaughton, S. (1992) Te Kohanga Reo hei tikanga ako i te Reo Maori: Te Kohanga Reo as a context for language learning, Educational Psychology, Vol. 12, Nos. 3 and 4, pp. 323-346.

Tutorial styles are discussed in detail by Sulzby & Teale, referenced above, and an interesting study of teaching in Quranic schools in Morocco is found in

Wagner, D.A. and Spratt, J.E. (1987) Cognitive consequences of contrasting pedagogies: The effects of Quranic pre-schooling in Morocco, Child Development, Vol. 58, pp. 1207-1219.

The idea that literacy develops in a unitary sequence with universal stages, or through a core set of concepts can be found in

Goodman, Y. (1990) How children construct literacy. Newark: International Reading Association.

and

Mason, J.M. and Allen, J. (1986) A review of emergent literacy with implications for research and practice in reading. In E.Z. Rothkopf (Ed.) Review of research in education, Vol. 13, Washington: American Educational Research Association.