THE WRITTEN LANGUAGE BEHAVIOR OF TWO SOCIO‐ECONOMIC GROUPS OF PRESCHOOL CHILDREN

Written language knowledge that lower SES children have acquired from their environment before formal instruction was investigated. Complete data were collected from four and five year old children enrolled in a headstart program. Data concerning each child's knowledge of written language were individually collected through the use of interview techniques as well as informal and standardized assessments including: Book Handling Knowledge (Goodman, 1981), Sand Test (Clay, 1976), Preschool Children's Concept of Reading (Goodman, 1981) and Preschool Children's Concept of Writing (Goodman, 1981).

The results were compared with the results from an earlier study (Robeck & Wiseman, in press) conducted with a middle SES group of children enrolled in a day care center. Demon strated behaviors indicated that the two groups of preschool children were acquiring reading and writing knowledge. The children from the headstart group were learning the same things as the children from the private day care center, however there were differences between the two groups of children in the range and number of behaviors observed. The study suggests that children from not only different socio‐economic groups but children from the same socio‐economic group enter school with wide differences in their written language knowledge.