Across the pendulum-like changes in beginning reading instruction over the past 30 years, three interrelated ideas emerge as the key to preventing reading failure in kindergarten and first grade: (1) an interesting, carefully-leveled book curriculum; (2) a leveled phonics curriculum; and (3) a well-trained teacher who knows how to integrate guided…

Reading Recovery, a meaning-based reading program designed for young children at risk of reading failure, is widely implemented across the United States. We discuss the recent Reading Recovery $45 million four-year i3-funded scaleup study that was designed to "cover the expansion of Reading Recovery around the U.S." (May, Sirinides,…

The study presents a reading intervention for children having a variety of reading deficits. For this study it was found that most of the children had not responded positively to phonics instruction. Based on brain imaging studies, it has been shown that there are positive changes in the left brains of readers with dyslexia who receive phonemic…

For a number of students, early failure is highly predictive of later failure, severely limiting the development of skilled reading. Students who do not read fluently generally do not become good readers. In addition, students with inadequate fluency are likely to avoid reading because of fear of failure and negative attitudes--and students who…

Because children living in poverty and minorities consistently demonstrate persistent reading difficulties (Adams, 1990), Congress intervened and passed the No Child Left Behind Act (U.S. Department of Education, 2006) mandating that scientifically based reading research be implemented in the primary grades. Quantitative studies presented in the…

The article presents a model of an effectively implemented visual phonics intervention program for kindergarten children at high risk for reading failure in a general education classroom. There is a growing body of professional literature documenting the effectiveness of visual phonics for children who are hard-of-hearing or deaf. There is little…

In 1990, Cunningham developed a Names Test as a quick and easy screening tool for teachers to obtain information about a student's decoding skills. In 1994, Duffelmeyer, Kruse, Merkley, and Fyfe added 10 names to the original Names Test and developed a comprehensive scoring matrix to increase diagnostic information from the test, based on error…