This teaching study tested whether guiding invented spelling through a Vygotskian approach to feedback would facilitate kindergarten children's entry into literacy more so than phonological awareness instruction. Participants included 40 kindergarteners whose early literacy skills were typical of literacy-rich classrooms, and who were receiving a…

We investigated the reading and spelling development of 140 Persian children attending Grades 1-4 in Iran. Persian has very consistent letter-sound correspondences, but it varies in transparency because 3 of its 6 vowel phonemes are not marked with letters. Persian also varies in spelling consistency because 6 phonemes have more than one…

This review focuses on intervention studies that tested whether parent-child reading activities would enhance children's reading acquisition. The combined results for the 16 intervention studies, representing 1,340 families, were clear: Parent involvement has a positive effect on children's reading acquisition. Further analyses revealed that…

This study examines the longitudinal relations among early literacy experiences at home and children's kindergarten literacy skills, Grade 1 word reading and spelling skills, and Grade 4 reading comprehension, fluency, spelling, and reading for pleasure. Ninety French-speaking children were tested at the end of kindergarten and Grade 1, and 65…

Goal: Educators believe that parents can help their children learn to read. But what evidence supports this belief? And if parent involvement does matter, what kinds of parent involvement are most efficient? The goal of this report was to review the scientific literature on parent involvement in the acquisition of reading from kindergarten to…