The current study examined the impact of an early summer literacy program and the mediating effects of the home literacy environment on the language and literacy outcomes of a group of children at-risk for long-term developmental and academic delays. Participating children (n=54) were exposed to an intensive book-reading intervention each summer (June through mid August) over a 3-year period. The current study implemented an ex post facto, quasi-experimental design. This nonequivalent group design involved a pretest and posttest over three time points for a non-randomized treatment group and a matched non-treatment comparison group. Results indicated that literacy scores did improve for the children over the 3-year period; however, language scores did not experience the same rate of change over time. Receptive language was significantly impacted by attendance, and race/ethnicity. Expressive language was impacted significantly by gestational age and attendance. Results also indicated that language outcomes for young children who are exposed to a literacy program were higher than those who did not participate; however, only receptive language yielded significance at the p This study concluded that at-risk young children do benefit from center-based literacy intervention. This literacy experience, however, is also driven by the children’s home environment, their attendance to the program, whether they were premature or not and the type of caregiver.

The main topic of this thesis focuses on finding out how teachers in primary and pre- primary education, according to their opinion, approach to incorporating science experiments into teaching, what are the conditions for experiments in teaching and how students react to the experiments. The theoretical part of the thesis focuses on analysis of information related to science experiments and their incorporating into curriculum. The practical part of the thesis includes data collection methods by interviewing teachers and by surveying opinion of students on the experiments, and their evaluation. KEYWORDS: Scientific Literacy, scientific Pre-Literacy, School Experiment

This study examined the effects of performance feedback information on parenting practices that contribute to development of vocabulary and pre-literacy skills. Fifty-one dyads of parents and their pre-school aged children were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups. Group one received full treatment including a workshop and feedback. Group two, designated as the control group, did not receive the feedback portion of the treatment; and group three, designated as a wait list control group, received neither the workshop nor performance feedback. All participating parents were administered a survey of parenting practices that lead to vocabulary and pre-literacy development. Treatment produced significant results for the vocabulary measure; however, the data did not yield a significant result for the cognitive measure. There appeared to be a significant difference between the treatment group and the wait list control group. This difference was not found when comparing the treatment group to the control group, or when comparing the control to the wait list control. Also, feedback was shown to have an effect on only one of the five parenting practices surveyed.

Children with communication disorders are often at risk of literacy difficulties, especially students that present with autism and/or speech sound disorders. This quasi-experimental study was designed to examine the effects of a 10-week "hybrid" intervention for preschool students with and without communication disorders in an integrated classroom. The classroom intervention targets both vocabulary and phonological awareness, two critical components of literacy that are strongly correlated with one another. The objectives of this study were (1) to provide empirical evidence that classroom-based pre-literacy intervention can be effective for students with communication disabilities, allowing for more time with their peers in a potentially least-restrictive environment and (2) to demonstrate that typically-developing preschool children also benefit from classroom-based pre-literacy training.

This diploma thesis deals with the Lapbook teaching method and its use to develop reading literacy for preschool-age children. The aim is to develop a deeper understanding of the text read by children and their creation of their own interactive book. The work presents an integrative project that is to stimulate children's interest in literature, understanding the story through appropriately selected activities and get acquainted with the entire process of making a Lapbook. The work is divided into theoretical and practical part. The theoretical part characterizes in general reading literacy, reading pre-literacy and its anchoring in the Framework Educational Program for Preschool Education. Furthermore, the characteristics of the period in terms of the child's development and the development of reading skills, the factors influencing reading, such as the influence of family or kindergarten, and the prerequisites for the development of reading literacy. The topic is also the importance of the book for preschool children and reading strategies with a focus on the E - U - R model (evocation - awareness of meaning - reflection). Finally, it deals with the definition of the Lapbook teaching method and instructions for its production. The practical part is based on action research, which was focused on...

This thesis focuses on work with reading cubes and with game named Story Cubes. It deals with possibilities how to use it to support reading literacy, understanding of text and speech development of pre-school children. The theoretical part first introduces characteristics of preschool children and describes reading literacy development in preschool age. Then it deals with principles of work with reading cubes and Story Cubes and with possibilities to use it in kindergarten. The thesis also includes a practical part which suggests other usage options for reading cubes. There are created specific lessons with reading cubes for preschool children, which follow the rules and recommendations mentioned in the theoretical part. These lessons were repeatedly implemented at kindergarten to be able to observe reading literacy development of each child in time. The hypothesis that preschool children can use selected reading strategies while working with reading cubes, and at the same time, these readership activities support the interest of children in books and related activities, proved to be correct. These children also expanded their vocabulary and improved expressing abilities through Story Cubes activities. KEYWORDS reading pre-literacy, reading cubes, Story Cubes, pre-school education, kindergarten

This master's thesis deals with the development of a coherent expression and understanding of read out text by pre-school age children. Theoretical part is focused on a speech development, coherent expression, reading pre-literacy, fairytales and a topic of asking questions. This work also includes the characteristics of a pre-school education and environmental care issues. Furthermore this work defines important knowledge from the General educational programme for preschool education, from which was a practical part preparation based on. Its goal was to design a development of coherent expression and understanding of read out text project, connected with the "What happens under the ground" topic, design particular lessons, implement them in a general kindergarten, reflect its realization and suggest recommendation for practice. Importance of a kindergarten teacher role was confirmed, because he or she is for children speaking idol. Involvement of parents into the project seems as very beneficial - for family relationship, reading pre-literacy and coherent expression children development. Moreover children during the project realization improved their ability to answer higher cognitive difficulty questions.

The thesis "Contemporary Magazines for Preschool Children from Family Point of View" introduces the area of reading pre-literacy focused on the issue of children's magazines. The theoretical part of the thesis defines the notion of the pre-literacy and the importance of reading pre-literacy in relation to the child of pre-school age. It also focuses on the child's relationship to the book and the children's magazine. The empirical part aims to explore children's magazines through documentary analysis, focusing on the content of current magazines for pre- school children. Another goal is to find out, by means of a questionnaire survey, on what criteria the parents choose children's magazines and what role the children themselves have in choosing the magazine. The results of the analysis found that there are magazines of good quality and content suitable for preschool children (Báječná školka, Raketa) and lesser quality magazines (Barbie, Auta). The results of the questionnaire survey show that most parents choose a children's magazine according to the quality of the texts, however the children's wishes plays an important role in the selection.

The aim of the thesis was to clarify how nursery teachers develop children's comprehension of the text read aloud and how they evaluate the possibility of using reading strategies to support children's comprehension during reading. In the theoretical part, I focused on defining the concept of reading literacy and pre-literacy, approaching the concept of the development of reading pre-literacy in the Czech Republic and clarifying the concept of comprehension of the text. Subsequently, I dealt with the issue of reading strategies and introduced those that are suitable for use in preschool age. In the empirical part, I used the qualitative approach of a multi-case study, which involved eight kindergarten teachers. Through in-depth interviews, repeated observation of the teachers' work with the text and subsequent analysis of video recordings of this work, answers to research questions were sought. It has been shown that teachers intend to develop children's comprehension, but only on a literal level, their work with texts is intuitive, without setting specific goals and monitoring the degree of their achievement. It turned out that reading strategies require a willingness of the teacher to work with them regularly and purposefully and to prepare for reading, which does not correspond to the prevailing...

The aim of this diploma thesis is characterization and evaluation of programs and projects, which are proceeding in United States of America to support children's reading skills. The first part is devoted to reading to children from birth to six years, impact of books to children, and to factors, which are influencing the beginning of reading. In other chapters are presented projects of American Library Association and its division Association for Library Services to Children. In the following, the programs of selected libraries and non-profit organization are mentioned (for example Mother Goose on the Loose, Birth to six or Reach out and Read). In the last part is described the situation in Czech Republic. There are presented projects like Celé Česko čte dětem, Rosteme s knihou, Poprvé do školy - Poprvé do knihovny, and also cooperation of libraries and kindergartens.