American Early Childhood Reading Instruction Study

Entering the 21st century, developed countries', represented foremost by America, initiated a movement of attaching great importance to developing the early reading education. These countries pushed early reading development to the forefront by enacting laws related to early reading education, raising curriculum standards and guidance, and conducting a great many early reading experiments. Influenced by this movement, our country also started to attach great importance to early reading teaching and the early reading philosophy promptly spread and became popular. Additionally, research and practice related to early reading education became prosperous.It has been almost ten years since America issued and carried out the "No Childhood Left behind Act" and the "Reading First" program. Through almost ten years of development, America as the forerunner of early reading education, has achieved unprecedented understanding about the significance of early reading education. Good reading ability is the basis of children's future academic achievement and career success. High quality teaching can ensure the children's reading skills. This has become common sense in American society. "By other's faults, wise men correct their own." America's exploration and practice of early reading, teaching provides us a research shortcut to address what early reading should look like, the importance of early reading teaching, how to teach early reading and also gives us important references. for our country's early reading teaching reform and development. The purpose of this research is to explain and understand early childhood reading teaching practice in America using the qualitative research methods, and then offers some suggestions by reflecting and analyzing its basic characteristics to help improve our country's early reading teaching practice.The dissertation is divided into three parts:Part one includes three chapters and lays out the research of basic theory. It sets forth the research questions, methods, and the theoretical foundations of American early childhood reading education.Chapter one, the introduction, mainly expounds the purpose, significance and value of the research, reviews relative studies of early reading, both domestic and overseas, and explains the basic conception of the study. Chapter two describes the research questions and lays out the basic train of thought, framework, and methods of the research.Chapter three clarifies the developmental philosophy of American early childhood reading teaching and analyzes its theoretical foundations.Part two is a case study of the greater Hartford area in State of Connecticut. It includes five chapters which present the status of early reading teaching by investigating American early reading teaching practice through two dimensions: basic reading skills teaching practice and the factors that influence teaching it.In chapter four, the author explains that word-identification skill is the foundation of early childhood reading competence; he investigates word-identification skill instruction in its four aspects:basic print concepts phonological and phonemic awareness, letter-sound and spell-sound knowledge, and understanding of the alphabetic principle.In chapter five, the author analyzes the influences of fluency on reading development and investigates the reading fluency instruction by the aspects of sight-word and reading aloud practice etc.In chapter six, the author mainly studies the vocabulary acquisition process and how teachers facilitate the development of children's vocabulary by name, language context, repetition, direct instruction and context of creation etc.In chapter seven, the author analyzes and discusses reading teaching process and level, and then surveys the reading comprehension strategies including the use of questions, comprehension monitoring, graphic organizers and imagination, and extensive reading.In chapter eight, the author clarifies the important factors which influence reading teaching; he also discusses these factors:writing, collaboration between school and family, assessment etc.Part three includes the conclusion and highlights. It analyzes the main characteristics of American early childhood reading teaching and offers some suggestions for our country's early reading teaching.