For thirty weeks, the children took part in a program called Project STAR, for Sit Together And Read. The project is based at Ohio State. It tests the short-term and long-term results of reading regularly to preschool children in their classrooms.

Laura Justice at Ohio State was an investigator for the study. She heads the Preschool Language and Literacy Laboratory. She says one of the areas that interests researchers is known as the "locus of learning."

LAURA JUSTICE: "Where is it that a child learns something? Where is that space? We think we have identified it pretty well in terms of fostering some children’s knowledge about print."

Professor Justice says this knowledge can be gained by having focused discussions when reading a book to a child.

LAURA JUSTICE: "We think we understand how information about print is transmitted from the adult to the child. And we think we have centered on this intervention that really helps adults center in on the things that children need and want to learn."

There are different ways that adults can talk to children about print. They can point to a letter and discuss it, and even trace the shape with a finger. They can point out a word: "This is 'dog.'" They can discuss the meaning of the print or how the words tell the story. And they can talk about the organization of the print -- for instance, showing how words are written left to right in English.

And that’s the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Jerilyn Watson. I'm Bob Doughty.