LISNews: Librarian News

Lee Hadden sent over This Newsweek Story on new research that shows preschoolers benefit from instruction in words and sounds. The story says researchers now say the old approach (using preschool as play time) ignores mounting evidence that many preschoolers need explicit instruction in the basics of literacy—the stuff most of us started to learn in first grade, how words fall on a page and the specific sounds and letters that make up words.

Early-literacy advocates say detailed instruction is especially important for the kids in the poorest neighborhoods who have the least exposure to books and sophisticated use of language.