In this article, the author presents a teaching prompt--Write-it-Out--to instruct readers who seemingly guess at words with no or limited use of grapheme-phonemic correspondences to recontextualize word-solving into writing. Through the nature of this prompt, slowing down the pace of solving words on the run with writing also reciprocally builds…

In today's primary grades, school districts are focused on having students reading on grade level by the end of the school year. To help support this goal, there are a range of strategies school districts use to attempt to meet this goal. These strategies may not promote joy in reading instruction. Primary grade teachers want students to fall in…

Phoneme discrimination is the ability to detect subtle similarities and differences between phonemes. Phoneme discrimination is a strong predictor of reading development and poor phoneme discrimination may predict reading disabilities (Lyytinen et al., 2004). The ability to discriminate phonemes may be an even more critical skill for Emergent…

There is some evidence that reading and spelling are complementary processes. The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which contextualized spelling (i.e., spelling activities within the context of reading instruction) is used to support reading in first-grade core reading programs. Analysis of 75 lessons across five programs…

The purpose of the present study was to assess the effectiveness of a phonological awareness training program in the specific context of the Luxembourgish educational system. The intervention was run by the kindergarten teachers in their classes with minimal external supervision. Forty-one classes of the area around Luxembourg City participated in…

Children with weak oral language skills are at risk of experiencing difficulty with early literacy acquisition. Intensive small group intervention during the pre-primary year has the potential to improve children's success in developing emergent literacy skills. Education assistants are a potentially powerful resource for supporting students at…

The improvement in the ability to process sounds in oral language (phonological awareness) through the contribution of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is reported by many researchers. However, deficits in phonological awareness may persist despite intervention. There is increasing research interest on how educational technology…

Transfer of reading strategies from the first language (L1) to the second language (L2) has long puzzled educators, but what happens if the L1 is an alphabet language and the second is not, or if there is a mismatch in the languages' grapheme-phoneme connection? Although some students readily adjust to reading and writing in their second language,…

Noticing and being able to manipulate the sounds of spoken language-phonological awareness-is highly related to later success in reading and spelling. The authors define and explain the levels of phonological awareness-syllable awareness, onset-rime awareness, phoneme awareness. They give teachers step-by-step instructions for implementing a…

Introducing nursery rhymes to young children can inspire them to explore language and motivate them to explore word play further in meaningful experiences (like cooking) that can be integrated into all aspects of the curriculum. Whether they slice, dice, or add allspice, these actions are appealing, because they contain many activities that help…

The purpose of this article is to present an integrated alphabetic approach that "simultaneously" teaches letter sounds and formations. We share with you the research that supports this integrated approach and present the procedures to implement this approach. Further, we document the effect of using this new integrated alphabet approach on the…

Two experiments tested the common assumption that knowing the letter names helps children learn basic letter-sound (grapheme-phoneme) relation because most names contain the relevant sounds. In Experiment 1 (n=45), children in an experimental group learned English letter names for letter-like symbols. Some of these names contained the…

Argues that literacy teachers should take letter play seriously in conjunction with invented spelling to help their students learn how letters and sounds relate. (RS)

Describes a pictogram system in which letters are made to look like human and animal characters as a way of teaching phonics to children; tells how teachers have imaginatively implemented the system through activities in such areas as drama, singing, and story telling. (GT)

This article reviews research on training phonological awareness in kindergarten and first grade children and describes research-based intervention and assessment activities applicable to classroom and clinical settings. Intervention applications described include categorization activities, phoneme segmentation, and metalinguistic games. (DB)