ABSTRACT
Capitalizing on the active and social nature of children’s learning, early instruction must provide rich demonstrations, interactions and models of literacy in the course of activities that make sense to young children. Shared reading builds on the benefits of the bedtime story to provide a solid foundation for reading and writing. In order for shared reading to reach its full potential the classroom situation must closely replicate the content and characteristics that make the bedtime story such a powerful precursor to successful reading. Teachers providing demonstrations of how the texts work, what readers do, and how they do it. The bedtime story should not be separated from the independent, productive behavior that it generates. Such behavior normally engages the infant in extensive, self monitored linguistic behavior for longer periods of time, involving far more intensive language use than is the case with the input activity of listening.
