This paper explores the extent to which student teachers, in their final year of a 3-year undergraduate programme teach phonics as part of a holistic reading programme linked to reading for meaning and for pleasure. It reports the results of surveys, lesson observations and interviews with a sample of students studying at one university in the…

Background: The teaching of reading or reading instruction has largely been carried out in terms of well-developed pedagogies in the field. These pedagogical approaches are, however, derived from research and development in a broad international context, and are often adopted by and implemented in various country settings. Given the contextual…

Visual Phonics is a multisensory teaching tool that has the potential to improve reading outcomes. The purpose of this systematic review is to examine studies on Visual Phonics to provide a comprehensive understanding of the effects on code-related skills. Thirteen studies met the inclusion criteria. The results demonstrate that Visual Phonics can…

This article reviews literature published between 2010 and 2022 on the integration of tablets in phonological awareness and phonics instruction in kindergarten and the elementary grades. Studies involving phonological awareness skills compared traditional methods with tablet instruction and investigated tablet integration with teacher guidance,…

Teaching children to read is one of the most fundamental goals of early years and primary education worldwide, and as such has attracted a large amount of research from a range of academic disciplines. The aims of this paper are: (a) to provide a new critical examination of research evidence relevant to effective teaching of phonics and reading in…

Activities that teach PreK-1 students the six components of emergent literacy and beginning reading and word study are presented for classroom settings. These activities are adaptable developmentally and they highlight four important aspects of teaching phonics, spelling and word knowledge that are often overlooked: the rhythm of literacy, Concept…

This systematic review investigated small-group Tier 2 interventions to improve oral language or reading outcomes for children during preschool and early primary school years. Literature published from 2008 was searched and 152 papers selected for full-text review; 55 studies were included. Three strength of evidence assessment tools identified a…

Purpose: Some children with cerebral palsy (CP) have difficulty acquiring conventional reading and writing skills. This systematic review explores the different types of literacy instruction and their effects on the reading and writing skills of children with CP. Method: Relevant studies published between 2000 and 2020 were identified using…

Educators and researchers have been fighting the reading wars for the last century, with battles see-sawing literacy instruction in American schools from phonics to whole language and, most recently, back to phonics again. Over the last decade, 32 states and the District of Columbia have adopted new "science of reading" laws that require…

Equipping elementary (i.e., grades K-5) teachers with adequate content and pedagogical knowledge to promote effective reading instruction based on the science of reading is a crucial piece of the reading education puzzle. We reviewed 20 empirical studies to examine the impact of teacher preparation and training programs on elementary teachers'…

Advocates of the science of reading have argued that (a) teacher preparation programs do not provide adequate preparation to teach code-related reading skills; (b) as a result, teachers lack knowledge of this area of literacy development; and (c) without that knowledge, teachers are unable to effectively teach students to read. In this integrative…

There is a widespread consensus in the research community that reading instruction in English should first focus on teaching letter (grapheme) to sound (phoneme) correspondences rather than adopt meaning-based reading approaches such as whole language instruction. That is, initial reading instruction should emphasize systematic phonics. In this…

Recently, there has been growing concern about how to most effectively support the literacy development of beginning and struggling readers with regard to helping them learn to effortlessly identify the huge number of words that proficient readers ultimately learn to read with automaticity. Some, noting the critical importance of phonics…

This systematic review and meta-analysis investigated the efficacy of spelling interventions for the remediation of dyslexia and spelling deficits. Theoretically important moderators, such as the treatment approach as well as orthographic and sample characteristics, were also considered. Thirty-four controlled trials that evaluated spelling…

Over the past decade, parent advocacy groups led a grassroots movement resulting in most states adopting dyslexia-specific legislation, with many states mandating the use of the Orton-Gillingham approach to reading instruction. Orton-Gillingham is a direct, explicit, multisensory, structured, sequential, diagnostic, and prescriptive approach to…