Young children's reading strategies as they read self-selected books in school

Abstract An ethnographic investigation was conducted to examine beginning readers' strategies as they read self-selected texts in the reading center of their first-grade, whole language classroom. Observations occurred from the first day of school through February, a time when most of these children emerged as conventional readers. The talk, actions, and books the children read were documented through observations and audiotaping. Patterns of reading behaviors show a general movement from a focus on pictures to a focus on print. The strategies were not developmentally linear across the 7-month period, they were recursive, as children often used more than one strategy to read one book. Several of the strategies, such as reading the text from memory, were indicative of the contextual environment, including the materials the children read as well as the instruction which emphasized oral language as the basis for learning written language.