Answering the call for a comprehensive textbook on what reading teachers really need to know, this is the book that arms educators with not just the what and the how, but also the why that other texts don't cover. Two prominent literacy experts team with an elementary school specialist to give preservice teachers an easy-to-understand textbook…

The National Early Literacy Panel (NELP) was appointed in 2002 and carried out its work under the auspices of the National Center for Family Literacy (NCFL). NELP's primary goal was to identify interventions, parenting activities, and instructional practices that promote the development of children's early literacy skills. The National Institute…

The reason that the school dropout crisis is now referred to as a "silent epidemic" is because, when we weren't paying attention, the graduation rate in our country slipped to a level that threatens the very health and well-being of our society. Each year, almost one-third of all public high school students--and nearly one-half of all…

Share's "self-teaching" model proposes that readers acquire most knowledge about the orthographic structure of words incidentally while reading independently. In the current study, the self-teaching hypothesis was tested by simulating everyday reading through the use of real words, analyzing the effects of context, and considering the independent…

This study examined the development of reading and reading-related skills for native and nonnative speakers of English through the first and second grades. Tasks assessing reading, phonological, and language processing were administered to 36 native English speakers (NS) and 38 children who spoke English as a second language (ELL). Both ELL and NS…

Purpose: Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) use phonological awareness assessments in many ways. This study examines the usefulness of these assessments in kindergarten and 2nd grade. Method: Measures of phonological awareness and letter identification were administered in kindergarten, and measures of phonological awareness, phonetic decoding…

Generalizability (G) theory was used with a sample of 37 third-grade students to assess the variability in words correct per minute (WCPM) scores caused by student skill and passage variability. Reliability-like coefficients and the SEM based on a specific number of assessments using different combinations of passages demonstrated how manipulating…

Many educational psychologists now conduct assessments of children's phonological skills. In the context of an outline of some of the issues relating to memory and phonological awareness, this paper explores an assumption underlying a method of assessing phonological awareness. It was assumed by Maclean, Bryant and Bradley (1987) that the presence…

The Reading First program was designed to help students in kindergarten through third grade develop stronger reading skills. This report examines the implementation of the Reading First program, including: (1) changes that have occurred to reading instruction; (2) criteria states have used to award sub-grants to districts, and the difficulties, if…

In a 3-year longitudinal, mixed-method study, 67 children in two schools were observed during literacy activities in Grades 1-3. Children and their teachers were interviewed each year about the children's motivation to read and write. Taking a grounded theory approach, content analysis of the child interview protocols identified the motivations…

Literacy is important not only to school success but is fundamental to skills needed to succeed in our rapidly changing technology-driven society. This article focuses on characteristics, interactions, and attitudes of parents and children related to their use of assistive technologies to build literacy skills. Interviews and observations…

Spelling pronunciations are hypothesized to be helpful in building up relatively stable phonologically underpinned orthographic representations, particularly for learning words with irregular phoneme-grapheme correspondences. In a four-week computer-based training, the efficacy of spelling pronunciations and previewing the spelling patterns on…

Even the youngest readers and writers in today's classrooms can benefit enormously from engagement with a wide range of traditional and nontraditional texts. This teacher-friendly handbook is packed with creative strategies for introducing K-3 students to fiction, poetry, and plays; informational texts; graphic novels; digital storytelling;…

Recent revisions of the Florida School Code by the Florida Legislature include a major component focusing on proficiency in reading. In particular, grade 3 students who do not score at level 2 or higher on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) SSS Reading Test must be retained, unless exempted for special circumstances. This new…

The Helping One Student to Succeed (HOSTS) Language Arts volunteer tutoring program was evaluated by comparing pre- and post-intervention scores on standardized measures of reading using a 5-month test-retest interval. Students (n = 129) from six elementary schools in Michigan that utilize the HOSTS program served as the experimental group, and…