In addition to the enthusiasm for hearing stories in the classroom, Feitelson et. al. reported that children asked their parents to buy them Kofiko books: "By the end of the study 13 of the 31 children in the experimental class personally owned one or more Kofiko books; all together the children owned 45 Kofiko books. Four additional children were borrowing Kofiko books from relatives, neighbors, or the public library. In comparison, there were single Kofiko volumes in each of three homes in one control class, and one Kofiko book each in four homes and two in a fifth home in the second control class. In every case these belonged to older siblings and the interviewed first grader had not read them" (p. 350).

It is hard to imagine a similar response to phonemic awareness activities.

The empirical research confirms what most parents know: The vast majority of children say that they enjoy being read to. Walker and Kuerbeitz (1979) reported that 35 out of the 36 children they studied said they liked being read to: Mason and Blanton (1971) and Wells (1985) reported similar results. And of course, the single best source for compelling case histories confirming the pleasure of read alouds is Trelease (2001).

Ironically, research suggests that read alouds also boost phonemic awareness: Neuman (1999) is a report of the Books Aloud project, a book flood aimed at three and four year old children in child care centers. "High quality" children's books were provided (five books per child), and ten hours of inservicing was provided for staff, which included techniques of doing read alouds, reading-related activities (e.g. manipulatives, hand puppets, flannel board activities), and the design of libraries. It is important to note that many staff members felt that direct teaching of skills was important. Neuman's goal was to "... alter heavily skill-based instruction" but still "acknowledge and work within teachers' beliefs" (p. 294).² The project lasted eight months.

Tests of phonemic awareness were given six months after the project ended. In the rhyme test, children were asked to indicate which word of three did not rhyme with the others. In the alliteration task, children were asked to indicate which word of three did not begin with the same sound. Children in the Books Aloud group were better than controls on both: I calculated effect sizes of .57 for rhyme and .54 for alliteration, which are quite substantial, and especially impressive considering that the tests were given long after the treatment ended.³ Citing Ehri, Neuman notes that this result suggests that "these skills may indeed be a by-product of exposure to books and learning" (p. 305).

Even if phonemic awareness were in fact a prerequisite to learning to read (which has never been demonstrated), it may very well be that children exposed to stories and meaningful print develop all the PA they need to insure their continued progress.

Shouldn't we study ways of developing literacy via pleasant and engaging activities? Shouldn't we continue to test the hypothesis that negative emotions hinder performance and learning, while positive emotions enhance them? Instead, I fear that research will investigate how to keep children quiet and docile so that they will endure boring (and ineffective) PA activities. How about Ritilan?⁴

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