Teachers and parentsusually call attention to the pictureswhen they read storybooks to preschool children.But a new study suggests that calling attentionto the words and letters on the pagemay lead to better readers.The two-year study compared childrenwho were read to this way in classwith children who were not.Those whose teachers most often discussed the printshowed clearly higher skillsin reading, spelling and understanding.These results were found one year and even two years later.Shayne Piasta, an assistant professor of teachingand learning at Ohio State University,was an author of the study.She says most preschool teacherswould find this method manageableand would need only a small change in the way they teach.They already read storybooks in class.The only difference would be increased attentionto the printed text.Ms. Piasta says if you get childrento pay attention to letters and words,it makes sense that they will do betterat word recognition and spelling.But she says research suggests that very few parentsand teachers do this in a systematic way.The report appears in the journal Child Development.More than three hundred children age four and fivewere observed in classrooms in Ohio and Virginia.The children came from poor familiesand were below average in their language skills.This put them at risk for reading problems later.For thirty weeks, the children took part in a programcalled Project STAR, for Sit Together And Read.The project is based at Ohio State.It tests the short-termand long-term results of reading regularlyto preschool children in their classrooms.Laura Justice at Ohio Statewas an investigator for the study.She heads the Preschool Language and Literacy Laboratory.She says one of the areas that interests researchersis 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 wellin terms of fostering some children's knowledge about print."Professor Justice says this knowledgecan be gained by having focused discussionswhen reading a book to a child.LAURA JUSTICE: "We think we understand how informationabout print is transmitted from the adult to the child.And we think we have centered on this interventionthat really helps adults center in on the thingsthat children need and want to learn."There are different ways that adultscan 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 printor how the words tell the story.And they can talk about the organization of the print-- for instance, showing how wordsare written left to right in English.And that's the VOA Special English Education Report,written by Jerilyn Watson.