Results of the Reading Programme
in the
United States, Japan and China: In
the Pre-school and in the Home
Research was done with both pre-
school groups and with children in
the home.
For the pre-school groups, the regular
teachers did the teaching. The pre-school
children ranged in age from 1 to 4 years.
For the children at home, parents did the
teaching. The children were between the
ages of 1 and 2.5 years.
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Research with English
“
Reading
In the home (Steinberg & Steinberg, 1975)
This research involves a single subject, the
first author's first son.
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In the home (Steinberg & Steinberg, 1975)
before 12 12 months 24 2.5 years of
months months age
• Able to correctly
• Began identify four •able to identify 48 •could read
written words, words, phrases, 181 different
introducing “car”, “baby”, and sentences,
words to items
“boy”, and “girl” •able to identify 48
the son words, phrases,
and sentences
In the home (Steinberg & Steinberg, 1975)
3.5 years about 8 years 12 years old and a
4 years 11 seventh grader
months old, and a third
grader
• could read •he scored higher
short •standardized than most tenth
sentences • His reading graders, and
tests placed achievement
in a text his reading equaled twelfth
equalled or graders in terms
fluently at generally bettered sixth of vocabulary,
and with beyond the graders on comprehension ,
natural third-grade vocabulary and speed, and
intonation (8 years) comprehension and accuracy.
level. eleventh graders on
speed and
accuracy
In the pre-school (Steinberg, 1980)
The reading programme was introduced to 2-, 3-, and 4-
year-old children in one of the most disadvantaged areas
on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. It was a short-term
study. The teachers did the teaching under the guidance
of the first author and his Chinese research assistant.
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In the pre-school (Steinberg, 1980)
During an average of 17.2 weeks of instruction with a
mere average of 10 to 12 minutes of instruction daily,
the children learned to read a mean of 28.7 words and
6.3 phrases and sentences.
In the pre-school (Steinberg, 1980)
One 3-year-old child who rarely spoke learned 29 words
and 12 phrases and sentences during 20.4 weeks of
exposure and that
the highest achiever was a boy who learned 94 words
and 41 phrases and sentences during 23.6 weeks of
exposure.
RESEARCH WITH
JAPANESE READING
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In the home (Steinberg, Yoshida, & Yogi, 1985;
Steinberg & Tanaka, 1989)
The four-phase reading programme was administered to
three Japanese children in the city of Hiroshima. The
parents spent about 15 minutes per day on average in
teaching the children.
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The children were from two upper-middle-
income families.
Two girls (sisters) Boy
The sisters were 18 months The boy was 20 months of
and 29 months of age. age.
The girls were more The boy could only utter a few
linguistically advanced, being words although he could
able to utter sentences. understand many words and
some phrases and sentences.
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During the first five months of the programme, the boy
learned a remarkable total of 311 written words
(Chinese character kanji and syllabic kana) and 62
phrases and sentences, while the girls learned 189 words
and 86 phrases and sentences. (The progress of the girls
is identical because the mother kept the older girl to the
slower pace of the younger girl.) 13
At the eighth week that he began to identify particular
items. In that week, he learned a surprising number of
46 words, 31 of which were kanji. In terms of his ability
to say these items,
his mother noted that in the early weeks of the Word
Identification phase he could pronounce only a small
number of the items. 14
It was further noted that after just the first few weeks of
identifying words, he began to remember written items
after just one or two presentations.
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After just 1 week of Word Familiarization, the girls
began to identify their first words. They began with 10
words the first week, 5 of which were kanji. Their
progress was much more gradual and less explosive
than the boy's. Evidently, there are
great individual differences in children's rate of
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After about two years, all three children were given a
standardized reading test, Each child scored between
Grades 2 and 3 (7 and 8 years) in overall achievement
on sentence comprehension and vocabulary. Their ages
at the time of the testing were 4 years 2 months for the
boy, and 3 years 11 months and 4 years 11 months for
the girls.
With Japanese in a pre-school
(Steinberg & Sakoda, 1982)
A project involving the reading programme was
introduced to a class of 2-year-olds and a class of
3-year-olds in a middle-income neighbourhood in
Hiroshima.
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Both the 2-year-old and 3-year-old groups proceeded
from the Word Familiarization to the Word
Identification phase within the first month of the
reading programme. During the eight-month course of
the research, on average
the 2-year-olds learned 97.3 words (71.0 of which
were kanji) and 3.0 phrases and sentences
the 3-year-olds learned a total of 99.3 words (81.3
being kanji) and 1.93 phrases and sentences.
While the high degree of similarity might indicate that
the learning capacity of the two age groups was much the
same, it is the researcher's opinion that the 3-year-olds
would have done much better had the quality of
instruction for the older class been as good as that for the
younger class. The teachers for the 2-year-olds were more
lively and enthusiastic in their teaching.
Research with Chinese Reading
In the home (Steinberg & Xi, 1989)
Three children from a variety of parental educational
backgrounds were taught to read by their parents in
their homes in Tianjin, China. There were one girl
and two boys ranging in age from 2 years 2 months
to 2 years 4 months.
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Findings
The children learned 140 or more character words in
their first 15 weeks. The programme lasted nearly two
years, during which time Ke-Ke (the girl) learned 401
characters, Bei-Bei (one of the boys) learned 293
characters, and Xia-Xia (the other boy) learned 270
characters. All were able to 22read simple books.
In a pre-school (Steinberg & Xi, unpublished)
Thirty 2-year-olds in one class were taught reading in a
pre-school in Tianjin. The programme lasted nearly 11
months. The children varied greatly in their
achievement. Some progressed to reading paragraphs
and simple books while others were still at a sentence
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Implications of Results
The results of the English, Japanese, and Chinese studies
provide evidence in support of the effectiveness of the
four-phase teaching programme. The findings strongly
indicate that the guiding principles and the teaching
program itself are optimal and universally applicable.
That’s all!
Thank you
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