In recent years, the number of English learners (ELs) in U.S. public schools has rapidly grown, with Hispanic children accounting for more than half of Texas public school students, including pre-kindergarten and early childhood education. ELs continue to demonstrate lower reading achievement in comparison to their native English-speaking peers.…

This exploratory study examined the nature of instruction provided in two reading intervention programs designed for elementary-grade students with dyslexia (The Multisensory Teaching Approach and Reading RULES!). In addition to documenting the proportion of time dedicated to particular content components (i.e., letter-name knowledge, phonological…

Many states now mandate early screening for dyslexia, but vary in how they address these mandates. There is confusion about the nature of screening versus diagnostic assessments, risk versus diagnosis, concurrent versus predictive validity, and inattention to indices of classification accuracy as the basis for determining risk. To help define what…

This report examines the beginning-of-year (BOY) 2018-2019 performance of English learner students (ELs) who attended Austin Independent School District's (AISD) summer school in June 2018. Summer school ELs' performance on Texas Kindergarten Entry Assessment (TX-KEA) and iStation Indicators of Progress (ISIP) was compared to the performance of…

The purpose of the study was to assess early literacy skills and examine the presence and stability of challenging behaviors across the critical threshold of the kindergarten school year. Students' (n = 337) literacy performance (letter sound fluency, word attack, and phonological awareness) and challenging behaviors (teacher ratings of…

Background: Although some investigations of phonological development have found that segmental accuracy is comparable in monolingual children and their bilingual peers, there is evidence that language use affects segmental accuracy in both languages. Aims: To investigate the influence of age of first exposure to English and the amount of current…

This study investigates the impact of using an adaptive computer-assisted instruction (CAI) program in early childhood education. The Waterford Early Reading Program (ERP) is a CAI program that was assigned to kindergarten and first grade students in a school district in Texas for the 2015-2016 school year. The Texas Primary Reading Inventory…

"Doors to Discovery"[TM] is an early childhood curriculum that uses thematic units to engage young children and support them as they build an understanding of their world. "Doors to Discovery"[TM] literacy activities are used to encourage children's development in a number of areas identified by research as the foundation for…