The effectiveness of phonological instruction with 6 deaf students in an oral program was investigated. In a previous investigation (Syverud, Guardino, & Selznick, 2009), promising results had been obtained in a case study in which the Direct Instruction curriculum titled "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" (Engelmann, Haddox, & Bruner,…

Studied was the development of a variety of grammatical-sensitivity and phonological skills in normally achieving, reading-disabled, arithmetic-disabled, and attention deficit disordered children 7 to 14 years old. (PCB)

This study, with 93 third grade poor readers, 54 fifth grade poor readers (with and without reading/IQ discrepancies), and 147 nondisabled first graders, found poor readers significantly more impaired than the matched first graders on all measures of nonword reading thus supporting the hypothesis of a deficit in nonword reading skills not…

An auditory rhyme detection task was employed to examine orthographic code development in 27 reading-disabled and 27 normally achieving children (ages 7-11 years). It was concluded that children with a reading disability have a lessened ability to automatically access and make available stored lexical information relating to orthography.…

Comparison of 80 beginning first graders, half receiving phonics instruction and half receiving whole word instruction, found, for both groups, those above grade level in reading excelled in phonological recoding and application of grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules while those below grade level applied visual-orthographic knowledge more than…

Two experiments with moderately mentally retarded students found that (1) adequate verbal instruction had a modest but significant effect on the subjects' ability to blend consonant sounds, and (2) training without pictorial prompts resulted in better blending than training with pictorial prompts. (Author/DB)

This study with 12 2nd- and 3rd-grade students with mild disabilities compared memory for new reading words following instructional sessions in which either word meaning or phonic cues were emphasized. The phonic instruction resulted in a greater number of words remembered either within sentences or on word lists. (Author/DB)

This study compared the effectiveness of reading instruction at the onset-rime level, phoneme level, and whole word level with 48 first graders. Both phoneme and onset-rime groups were significantly more accurate than whole word groups, and there was a tendency for the onset-rime group to outperform all other groups. (Author/DB)

Assesses the extent to which 30 third graders employ phonetically-based spelling strategies in representing synthetic words with high and mid front vowels. Finds spelling of good readers rule-governed and derived from judgement about language while that of poor readers showed less awareness of written language patterns. (LFL)

Compared comprehension of kindergarten-age precocious readers (who read at the third-grade level) with second- and third-grade-age children. Results on measures of letter, scrambled word, and text reading times indicated that, for precocious readers, efficiency in lower-order tasks is not a prerequisite for rapid text reading and good…

Comparison of "Distar Reading Mastery" and Addison Wesley's "Superkids" beginning reading programs with 81 children in transitional kindergarten special education classes found no significant differences at the end of the treatment year or at one-year follow-up. However, among children making the most gains, the Distar group…

Reports on a study of preferred reading instruction approaches among 121 British reading teachers. Finds that most do not use a single approach, but a blend of approaches determined by individual differences. Maintains that most perceive their role as encouraging students to enjoy reading. (CFR)

Reports on a study of the relationship of both phonemic and musical sound discrimination to reading ability among 18 British first graders. Finds that discrimination of musical sounds is related to music performance but that the influential factor is a specific awareness of pitch changes. (CFR)

Elementary learning-disabled boys (N=48) were randomly assigned to four feedback treatment conditions that involved orally reading nonsense words. Results demonstrated significant differences for: any type of feedback compared to no feedback, corrective feedback (modeling and sound-it-out) compared to general feedback, and modeling compared to…

A study examined the hypothesis that if young children are immersed in a social and psychological setting appropriate for language learning they can learn to write simply by writing. Placed in a supportive classroom environment, 24 first grade students were expected to communicate in writing in any way they could from their first day at school.…