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“If There's a Dance in the Book, I Feel It...Inside”: Lessons in Emergent Literacy

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Abstract

This case study illustrates the impact that an emergent literacy environment (both at home and at school) can have on literacy acquisition. The author's 3-year-old niece and 30 of her nursery school classmates were interviewed about their perceptions of reading. The impressive hypotheses the main character had formed about language learning by the age of 3, without any formal instruction, offers food for thought in view of the increasingly popular lockstep language arts programs currently being advocated by phonics zealots and basal text publishers.

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Authors
  1. Kathleen Werner
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Werner, K. “If There's a Dance in the Book, I Feel It...Inside”: Lessons in Emergent Literacy. Early Childhood Education Journal 28, 11–18 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009539302275

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