This article addresses the characteristics of learners in the emergent stage of literacy development and describes two instructional practices that facilitate the development of the alphabetic principle and concept of word in text.

This study investigates the effects and feasibility of an intervention for first-grade students at risk for reading difficulties or disabilities (RD). The intervention was provided by general education classroom teachers and consisted of 15 min whole-class comprehension lessons (Tier 1) and 30 min Tier 2 intervention sessions in word reading,…

For students who have limited expressive language skills, both verbally and in writing, it is difficult for a teacher to assess the acquisition of reading skills. The authors examined the effects of computer-aided instruction (CAI) on the early reading and reading comprehension skills of six students with autism spectrum disorder, and other…

The purpose of the current study was to examine academic and cognitive profiles of first graders who responded adequately and inadequately to intensive small-group reading intervention (Tier 2), as well as assess how these profiles differ based on the criteria used for classification of unresponsiveness. Nonresponders were identified using two…

For children with language challenges, little is known about effective early reading interventions, because most studies have used language scores as exclusionary criteria. We randomly assigned 78 kindergartners with poor language skills to small group reading interventions that included phonemic awareness, alphabetic understanding, and oral…

Technical adequacy and information/cost return were examined for four early reading measures: the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS), STAR Early Literacy (SEL), Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation (GRADE), and the Texas Primary Reading Inventory (TPRI). All four assessments were administered to the same…

This research explored the relationship of the Reading First Initiative (RFI) in terms of its impact on students' early reading development K-3 and teachers' delivery of instruction. Extant test data were used to establish quantitative data. Direct observation utilizing a checklist consisting of five categories--management, environment, setting…

The relative effectiveness of two computer-assisted instructional programs designed to provide instruction and practice in foundational reading skills was examined. First-grade students at risk for reading disabilities received approximately 80 h of small-group instruction in four 50-min sessions per week from October through May. Approximately…

Early intervention to mitigate special education and reading risk is especially critical for low socioeconomic and minority learners. This study examined the lasting effects of an early reading intervention package of phonemic awareness on the reading skills of 38 second-grade students one and two years after intervention ended. The participants…

The effectiveness study examined a supplemental reading intervention that may be appropriate as one component of a response-to-intervention (RTI) system. First-grade students in 31 schools who were at risk for reading difficulties were randomly assigned to receive Responsive Reading Instruction (RRI; Denton, 2001; Denton & Hocker, 2006; n =…

This study was designed to research the difference in parental training in phonemic awareness on the achievements of their children who had been identified as struggling readers. Subjects were children from ten kindergarten and first grade classrooms residing in federally subsidized housing. An experimental group (the phonemic awareness trained…

Children (5 and 6 years old, n = 30) at familial risk of dyslexia received a home-based intervention that focused on phoneme awareness and letter knowledge in the year prior to formal reading instruction. The children were compared to a no-training at-risk control group (n = 27), which was selected a year earlier. After training, we found a small…

This study investigated the effects of a supplemental early reading intervention program on the phonemic awareness and alphabetic principle skills of students identified as at risk for reading failure. Seven kindergarten students and one first-grade student received 20 min of supplemental reading instruction 3 days a week for 16, 12, and 8 weeks.…

The purpose of this report is to provide education professors teaching early literacy methods courses with information for beginning teachers to support struggling first-grade readers. This analysis identifies the specific word structures children are expected to know by the end of first grade, and shows the actual learning rates of these…