In elementary school, an important goal of reading instruction is to enable children to read most words automatically by sight so that they can focus on learning from and enjoying what they are reading. But becoming a strong reader takes several years. Parents and caregivers need to know if a child is making good progress in learning to read.…

Literacy improves lives--and with the right instruction and supports, "all students" can learn to read and write. That is the core belief behind this teacher-friendly handbook, your practical guide to providing comprehensive, high-quality literacy instruction to students with significant disabilities. Drawing on decades of classroom…

Teaching systematic phonics effectively to beginning readers requires specialized knowledge and training which many primary grade teachers lack. The current study examined effects of a year-long mentoring program to improve teachers' knowledge and effectiveness in teaching phonics and the extent that it improved students' achievement in reading…

In this study, we examined the spelling performance of 430 kindergartners, which included a high-risk sample, to determine the relations between end-of-kindergarten reading and spelling in a high-quality language arts setting. We described, analyzed, and compared spelling outcomes, including spelling errors, between good and poor readers. The…

Longitudinal results for a randomized-controlled trial (RCT) assessing the impact of increasing preschoolers' attention to print during reading are reported. Four-year-old children (N = 550) in 85 classrooms experienced a 30-week shared reading program implemented by their teachers. Children in experimental classrooms experienced shared-book…

The purpose of this study was twofold: (a) to examine the effect of task-focused behaviour on reading fluency, spelling and comprehension; and (b) to examine the role of the different literacy skills in subsequent task-focused behaviour. Two hundred and seven Finnish-speaking children were followed from preschool until their fourth year at school…

Preschool-aged children (n = 58) were randomly assigned to receive small group instruction in letter names and/or sounds or numbers (treated control). Alphabet instruction followed one of two approaches currently utilized in early childhood classrooms: combined letter name and sound instruction or letter sound only instruction. Thirty-four 15…

This article reviews the evidence pertaining to intensity for phonemic awareness intervention for preschoolers and kindergartners with language impairment. The nature of phonemic awareness instruction is considered, including which phonemic awareness skills should be explicitly taught, how to structure these skills into teaching episodes, and how…

Alphabet knowledge is a hallmark of early literacy and facilitating its development has become a primary objective of preschool instruction and intervention. However, little agreement exists about how to promote the development of alphabet knowledge effectively. A meta-analysis of the effects of instruction on alphabet outcomes demonstrated that…

A sample of 83 kindergarten teachers participated in this study to examine their knowledge, skills, and classroom practices concerning phonological awareness. Analyses of data revealed significant gaps between knowledge and practice, knowledge and skills, and skills and practice. The gap between knowledge and skills, on one hand, and classroom…

This highly regarded work brings together prominent authorities on vocabulary teaching and learning to provide a comprehensive yet concise guide to effective instruction. The book showcases practical ways to teach specific vocabulary words and word-learning strategies and create engaging, word-rich classrooms. Instructional activities and games…

Genetic and environmental influences on prereading skills in preschool and on early reading and spelling development at the end of kindergarten were compared among samples of identical and fraternal twins from the U.S. (Colorado), Australia, and Scandinavia. Mean comparisons revealed significantly lower preschool print knowledge in Scandinavia,…

It has been suggested that children need exposure to alphabetic tuition before they can develop phonological awareness, especially phonemic awareness. This paper re-examines an existing data set to see whether two groups of pre-school, pre-literate children who differ in their knowledge of letter names (used here as a measure of alphabetic…

Using a pretest-posttest comparison-group design, this 16-week study investigated the effects of 2 instructional approaches on the phonological awareness, alphabetic knowledge, and early reading of kindergarten children. The primary goal was to compare a form of contextualized instruction based on an adapted interactive writing program with a…

Summarizing current research and weaving it into practical instructional strategies that teachers can immediately use with young English language learners (ELLs), this book addresses a major priority for today's primary-grade classrooms. All aspects of effective instruction for ELLs are explored: oral language development and instruction,…