The role of phonological awareness and alphabet knowledge in learning to read is well established in mono-lingual English speakers. However, it is under explored in the context of English Language Learners (ELL), especially in regions like India where the native language differs phonologically and orthographically from the target literate…

Purpose: This longitudinal study examined the contribution of preschool morphological awareness to word reading skills and reading comprehension, as well as to the developmental change of reading ability beyond other well-established oral language and cognitive predictors. A distinction was made between the domains of inflectional and derivational…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine if word reading and vocabulary are reciprocally related. Method: We followed a sample of 172 English-speaking Canadian children (82 girls, 90 boys; M[subscript age] = 75.87 months at the first measurement point) from the beginning of Grade 1 until the beginning of Grade 3 and assessed them three…

The purpose of this study was to identify kindergarteners at risk for language and reading disorders and to determine predictors. A representative sample of 311 kindergarteners in general education classrooms in the U.S. Midwest were assessed with the Well Screening in fall, winter, and spring. Groups were compared using analysis of variance…

Teachers must devote significant time to making the instructional decisions necessary to effectively plan and prepare small group lessons. Although small group instruction has attracted the attention of researchers, there is a lack of understanding in the effective implementation of reading interventions to support struggling readers. The purpose…

This paper reports on a mixed-methods study of the "Total Reading Approach for Children Plus" (TRAC+) program, with a particular focus on its mobile learning element, where tablets and an app called "Aan Khmer" (Read Khmer) were introduced into Cambodian schools to assist 'struggling students' in Grades 1 to 3 learn early…

Measuring and identifying risk for reading difficulties at the kindergarten level is necessary for providing intervention as early as possible. The purpose of this study was to examine concurrent validity evidence of two kindergarten reading screeners, Acadience Reading and Texas Primary Reading Inventory (TPRI), as well as diagnostic accuracy at…

We examined the associations between teachers' knowledge of language and literacy constructs, perceived ability to teach early literacy skills, instructional practice, and students' early reading outcomes. The results showed that teacher knowledge predicted quality of instruction, but neither quality of instruction nor teacher knowledge were…

This brief provides a summary of the reliability of second grade students' Istation ISIP Early Reading scores in predicting third grade students' scores on the Idaho Standards Achievement Test (ISAT) in English language arts (ELA). The ISIP Early Reading test was administered to a subset of second grade students in Idaho in the 2017-18 school…

The purpose of this study was (a) to compare the single-word spelling performance of first graders across four groups that varied by speech and language status; and (b) to determine the linguistic predictors of first-grade spelling for children with speech and/or language impairment compared to children with typical development. First-grade…

Purpose: There are well-established links between oral language and reading development in monolingual English-speaking children that are associated with literacy outcomes. Oral language, defined relative to lexical quality, provides key support for developing early reading skills. For bilingual children, the connection between oral language and…

Istation is a digital-based instructional intervention tool for various content areas aimed at pre-K through 8th grade learners. The Istation Reading program consists of formative assessments, named Istation Indicators of Progress (ISIP™), which are computer-adaptive and diagnostic literacy assessments designed to track student growth over time.…

Learning to decode is critically important to the process of becoming literate. As such, a thorough understanding of decoding development is critical as well. Extant theories contribute to such an understanding but do not provide a complete description of decoding development; a different theory is needed to address limitations in the extant…

The Texas A&M University System recently developed six quality standards for educator preparation programs, the Texas A&M Quality Standards for Educator Preparation, that are to be implemented and met by all system schools. These standards are: quality of selection of teacher candidates; quality of content knowledge and teaching methods;…

We examined the cognitive predictors of early word reading skills in Japanese syllabic Hiragana and morphographic Kanji. Eighty-three Japanese kindergarten children (M age = 75.6 months, SD = 3.4) were assessed on nonverbal IQ, vocabulary, phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN), phonological memory, morphological awareness, and…