Compares reading and spelling development of native Dutch-speaking children and minority children in the first two grades. Finds that the minority children kept up with the native Dutch-speaking children on word blending and word decoding tasks, but not on spelling and reading comprehension. Suggests that children learning to read in a second…

Argues that while the literacy needs of the adult center primarily on obtaining information from nonfictional texts, literacy instruction in the schools concentrates on fictional texts and literary appreciation. Demonstrates the origins of this chasm in the socialization of schooling over the last 300 years in America. Presents a plan for making…

This study explores emerging lexical processes that may be the foundation for children's acquisition of morphological knowledge and the relation of these processes to reading comprehension. First and third graders were given two tasks involving lexical analysis of morphologically complex words. Two years later, they were given a measure of…

This study examined the extent to which literacy is a unitary construct, the differences between literacy and general language competence, and the relative roles of teachers and students in predicting literacy outcomes. Much of past research failed to make a distinction between variability in outcomes for individual students and variability for…

This study examines the longitudinal relations among early literacy experiences at home and children's kindergarten literacy skills, Grade 1 word reading and spelling skills, and Grade 4 reading comprehension, fluency, spelling, and reading for pleasure. Ninety French-speaking children were tested at the end of kindergarten and Grade 1, and 65…

This study examines how measures of articulation rate, verbal short-term memory (STM), naming speed, and phonological awareness tasks administered in kindergarten and again in Grade 1 jointly and uniquely predict word reading and passage comprehension variance in Grades 1, 2, and 3. Results from regression and commonality analyses indicated that…

This study compared the efficacy of two decoding skill-based programs, one based on explicit orthographic rime and one on grapheme--phoneme correspondences, to a control group exposed to an implicit phonics program. Children in both explicit decoding programs performed consistently better than the control group in the accuracy with which they read…

Finds that (1) children taught in Spanish did not differ from those taught in English on English reading and writing but were significantly stronger on Spanish reading and writing; (2) being taught literacy in Spanish contributed to performance in Spanish reading comprehension; but (3) being taught in English did not have the same positive effect…

Reports the results of two studies which further examine the relations of motivational-variables contribution to reading achievement and text comprehension. Results revealed that reading amount significantly predicted text comprehension (with other variables controlled) in both studies (Study 1 included third and fifth graders; Study 2 included…