Background: Afterschool programs (ASPs) in the United States have been implemented in low income neighborhoods to enable at-risk youth to access educational support services to increase academic skills. However, mixed findings about the ASPs positively affecting academic performance suggests a need for additional evaluative studies. Objective: The…

This study investigated the use of computer-aided instruction (CAI) as an intervention for kindergarten students at risk for reading failure. Headsprout Early Reading (Headsprout 2005), a type of CAI, provides internet-based, reading instruction incorporating the critical components of reading instruction cited by the National Reading Panel (NRP…

This study sought to determine if, by providing parents with a workshop on the use of dialogic reading techniques during the storybook reading event in the home, Pre-Kindergarten children's attitude and interest in reading would improve. Parents completed a survey prior to the workshop and two months following completion of the workshop. Through…

The present study compared the effects of different mediation routines provided to kindergartners from families of low socioeconomic status on the students' invented spelling attempts and on their gains obtained on spelling and other early literacy skills (letter naming, sounds of letters, word segmentation, and word decoding). The effects of the…

Traditionally, children's books are in a printed format and shared book reading is done with an adult. In recent years, interactive E-books have become a common medium for children's books and shared book reading is diminishing. This study compared the contribution of book format to the development of literacy in kindergarten children. We…

The purpose of this study was to document teachers' use of and student responses to a set of early literacy texts designed as a school-home literacy project. Participants in this study were 23 children from six urban kindergarten classrooms and their kindergarten teachers; 11 with high letter identification at entry (HLID) and 12 with low letter…

The authors--a second grade classroom teacher and a university professor of education--decided to collaborate. Melanie wanted to find out if she could help her students increase their reading and writing comprehension by presenting a sequence of events in an activity (for example, the steps in building a house) and then have the students write the…

The main objective of the overall Targeted Reading Intervention (TRI) was to help the classroom teacher acquire the key reading diagnostic strategies (e.g., Cooter, 2003; Desimone, 2009; Garet et al., 2001; Timperley & Phillips, 2003) relevant to K-1 struggling readers (e.g., Desimone, 2009; Garet et al., 2001; Guskey, 2002; Joyce &…

Although over 15 years have passed since Witt (1990) noted that no empirical evidence exists to support the contention that a collaborative approach to consultation leads to more positive outcomes than a hierarchical or expert driven approach, this issue generally remains unaddressed (Schulte & Osborne, 2003). While the literature documenting…

We examined the effects of a three-tier strategic model of intensifying instruction using "Reading Mastery Plus" in grades K-3 at a Title I school. Teachers received training and coaching before and during the program evaluation. They were assessed on their satisfaction with the program as well. The "Diagnostic Indicators of Basic…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether music instruction was related to significant gains in the development of young children's phonemic awareness, particularly in their phoneme-segmentation fluency. Beginning in January 2004 and continuing through the end of April 2004, each of four intact classrooms of kindergarten children (n =…