This paper explores the extent to which student teachers, in their final year of a 3-year undergraduate programme teach phonics as part of a holistic reading programme linked to reading for meaning and for pleasure. It reports the results of surveys, lesson observations and interviews with a sample of students studying at one university in the…

This study has been conducted with eighty undergraduate EFL students at Qassim University, over a period of six weeks, with forty students each in control and experimental groups. The results from the mixed-method analysis show that the experimental group achieved higher scores in listening skills and general comprehension than the control group.…

This study explores the perceived effectiveness of an open educational reading programme for primary school pupils with specific learning difficulties (SpLD) such as dyslexia. The programme, implemented by experienced teaching assistants (TAs), encompassed multiple aspects of reading, including phonics, sight word reading, reading fluency,…

The teaching of L2 phonics, defined here as explicit instruction in the symbol-sound correspondences of a second or foreign language, has been enjoying growing popularity in recent years. This is associated with the reemphasis of phonological decoding in different aspects of L2 learning, and learners' difficulty in developing L2 decoding…

Debates over the impact of preservice literacy teacher education on teachers' professional knowledge have found new life inside of contemporary disagreements over what constitutes a Science of Reading. Drawing on understandings of literacy teachers' self-efficacy as influenced over time and through experiences, we conducted two surveys to…

Debates about teaching reading have long been a part of educational vernacular, frequently reduced to polarised views about phonics. This attention can unnecessarily divert from the cumulative skills required for learning to read and comprehensive research, which indicates the positive influence of systematic phonics instruction on students'…

The present study examines the reasons why the Saudi EFL students' spelling performance is notoriously below standard. The Saudi EFL scene has a vast corpus of research examining it from different angles but most of it has focused on the linguistic differences between Arabic and English, whereas this study attempts to evaluate the perceptions and…

This qualitative multi-case research study explored the experiences of pre-service teachers learning phonics and phonemic awareness (PPA) in a literacy methods course. Data were collected from pre- and post-test scores, literacy life maps, semi-structured interviews, and course questionnaires. Findings suggest pre-service teachers with limited…

Literacy instruction is an important component of educator preparation programs. Since many students are identified as having learning disabilities in reading, it is important that all teachers are knowledgeable and have proficient phonics skills. Recent research has indicated that many teachers are lacking the skills necessary for appropriate…

Pre-service teachers (PSTs) need sound Knowledge About Language (KAL), both for their own professional communication and for their teaching practice. In the longer term, enhanced KAL will benefit our graduates in their implementation of the Australian Curriculum. This paper reports on work with First Year PSTs at one Australian university. We…

The decades-long and contentious debate over how students are taught to read centers around the role that phonics and alphabetic code-related skills have in reading instruction. Some claim that these skills are not prioritized in most elementary classrooms because teacher education programs do not adequately prepare preservice teachers (PSTs) to…

We used survey and administrative data from Washington State to assess the degree to which special education teacher preparation, district literacy instructional practices, and the alignment between preparation and practice were associated with the reading test score gains of students with high-incidence disabilities taught by early-career special…

We used survey and administrative data from Washington State to assess the degree to which special education teacher preparation, district literacy instructional practices, and the alignment between preparation and practice were associated with the reading test score gains of students with high-incidence disabilities taught by early-career special…

An important characteristic of expert teaching is the ability to adapt instruction to meet learners' needs. One way this type of ownership of instruction happens is through teachers interactively constructing knowledge about pedagogical content with others. In this article, the authors looked at how a group of thirteen participants enrolled in an…

Foreign language (FL) reading is a persistent problem among many learners. This preliminary study investigates FL reading anxiety among students learning English as a foreign language (EFL) at the tertiary level, employing Saito et al.'s (1999) Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS) and a background information questionnaire. A total of…