Few previous studies have directly linked the contribution of phonological awareness (PA) and rapid automatized naming (RAN) to the development of phonological processing and orthographic processing in reading. These studies are predominantly cross-sectional and focus on reading development predictors, with relatively little emphasis on spelling…

Learning irregular words involves mental marking of irregular letters in the spelling, a process not fully understood. In a within-subjects experiment, we manipulated the type of scaffolding given to beginning readers to evoke mental marking. We pretested to sort 103 kindergarten and first-grade participants into sequential decoders, who decode…

The role of verbal working memory (VWM) in early language and literacy development among typical and atypical monolingual children exposed to different orthographies is well established. Less is known how English Language Learners (ELLs) allocate their VWM resources in early stages of literacy acquisition in English (L2). This study examined the…

This study, which was drawn from a larger published work, examined language proficiency and literacy skills predictive of learning content and function words via the commonly used practice of flashcard word reading, which tests word knowledge in isolation. The current study also investigated differences in word learning performance between…

The goal of the current study was to determine whether Concept of Word in Text (COW-T) predicts later sight word reading achievement in Spanish, as it does in English. COW-T requires that children have beginning sound awareness, automatic recognition of letters and letter sounds, and the ability to coordinate these skills to finger point…

A quasi-experimental action research with a pretest-posttest same subject design was implemented to determine if there is a different effect of the flash card method and the multisensory approach on kindergarteners' achievement in sight word recognition, and which method is more effective if there is any difference. Instrumentation for pretest and…

Several decades of research have established the critical role of phonemic awareness in the development of beginning reading. In particular, phonemic awareness makes early phonics instruction useful for children and facilitates their ability to blend letter sounds while decoding words, to learn sight words reliably, and to spell phonetically. A…

Sight word learning and memory were studied to clarify how early during development readers process visual letter patterns that are not dictated by phonology, and whether their word learning is influenced by the legality of letter patterns. Forty kindergartners and first graders were taught to read 12 words containing either single consonants…

Kindergarten is a time for playful and enriching learning activities that support children's literacy emergence while enhancing their social and cognitive development. The routines of a busy, engaged, productive kindergarten classroom are vividly brought to life in this information-packed book. Demonstrated are whole-class and small group…