This is the first in an occasional series on the dramatic national push to revamp how reading is being taught in the earliest grades. This EdSource special report examines the state of early reading in California, the needs of special learners, teacher preparation and training and curricula and textbooks that are driving instruction. This ongoing…

Despite recent calls to more fully incorporate multimodal perspectives into literacies research, there is still limited scholarship examining how students critically engage in reading activities by drawing on embodied practices. Racially and linguistically minoritized students are particularly disadvantaged by dominant logocentric and…

The traditional remedial, stand-alone reading and writing courses at one community college were redesigned to create a single integrated reading and writing developmental course (IRW). Unlike a truly accelerated course, this IRW course combined two courses at the same level and therefore highlights the impact of integrating reading and writing.…

Teacher professional learning is often disjointed and not aligned with the curricula teachers use in daily instruction. This lack of preparation has led to fragmented approaches to teaching young students to read, in part because initiatives lose momentum, teachers modify the instruction beyond recognition, and programs are soon eclipsed by newer…

Many recent articles have focused on reading instruction in kindergarten, but few have solicited the beliefs of the experts--kindergarten teachers. This study examined California teachers' perceptions of teaching reading to kindergarten students. Kindergarten teachers from northern to southern California were surveyed (N = 103). Teachers reported…

Students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often exhibit challenges with reading development. Evidence-based interventions and specialized approaches to reading instruction are currently being implemented across educational contexts for learners with ASD (Machalicek et al., 2008), yet there is limited understanding of how core ASD features may…

This study examined the effects of three trials of a one-semester program designed to teach word learning strategies. Together, the three trials included 320 fourth- and fifth-grade students from diverse backgrounds. Trial 1 showed that the program significantly increased students' scores on an experimenter-designed test. Trial 2 again showed that…

In this era of reading as a priority, research has indicated that children with Down syndrome (DS) can indeed learn to read, attaining functional levels of literacy and beyond. Families of children with DS are also increasingly advocating for reading instruction for their children. However, few studies have examined what beginning educators know…

This five-year study focused on school processes that promoted the scaling-up of a high school academic literacy framework, Reading Apprenticeship, developed by WestEd's Strategic Literacy Initiative (SLI). Implementing an innovative strategy for scaling-up involving school-based cross-disciplinary teacher teams, SLI brought the framework to 274…

Postsecondary institutions need well-prepared instructors to equip students for changing economic and social realities, instructors who are also trained to address the learning needs of the many students who enter college unprepared to learn and persevere in a program of study. Unlike teacher preparation for kindergarten through twelfth grade, a…

The following comment was inspired by an English teacher at Health Sciences High & Middle College in San Diego, California: "There's still a question on the table. How can we get our students to read more and better? They read what they have to, and they're doing OK, but how do we ensure that they are ready for what comes after high…

This study integrated reading and bilingual theories to examine the reading behaviors of second grade Latinx students in a Dual Language program. It explored how the students' differing language backgrounds (simultaneous bilinguals and sequential bilinguals who had developed Spanish as a home language) might influence their early reading…

Teachers who meet Common Core recommendations about teaching with multicultural literature need to recognize the traditions, values, and customs of various cultures so they can make sound decisions about the authenticity of the books they select for their students. Furthermore, teachers who support students' literacy achievements with exemplary…

Throughout our targeted approach of explicit collaborative translation during small-group reading instruction in a bilingual education classroom, fourth grade emergent bilinguals employed the strategy to comprehend narrative text in a range of ways, similar to middle school students in reading instruction research. As students acknowledged the…

In this study, the authors examine how emergent bilingual second graders collaboratively constructed textual understandings, a phenomenon they call "intercomprehending," by building on each other's contributions and positioning their ideas in relation to peer ideas. The study traces the interrelationships of the utterances of emergent…