This study examined low-SES, urban children's ways of interpreting traditional skills-based literacy instruction in kindergarten and first grade. Thirty-five randomly selected children from three inner-city schools were tested for entering and end-of-first-grade knowledge of six domains of written language. Their scores on two standardized achievement tests were also collected. Twelve children were randomly selected from this sample for close observation over 2 years in their classrooms. Qualitative and quantitative analyses revealed four patterns of success/ nonsuccess in literacy development within the classroom context: (a) the Independent Explorer children who began kindergarten with the big picture of written language and successfully interpreted the skills-based instruction while engaging in numerous self-directed explorations of print, (b) the Curriculum Dependent children who did not have a big picture of written language from the start and exhibited major mismatches between their understandings and those required by the curriculum, (c) the Passive Nonweavers who failed to actively construct relationships between the many skill activities required of them, and (d) the Deferring Learners who moved from a knowledgeable active stance to a passive one after confronting mismatches between their knowledge of print and the curriculum.
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