Discrimination of reversible mirrored letters (e.g., d and b) poses a challenge when learning to read as it requires overcoming "mirror invariance," an evolutionary-old perceptual tendency of processing mirror images as equivalent. The present study investigated "when," in reading development, mirror-image discrimination…

The goal of the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Practice Guide, "Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten through 3rd Grade," is to offer educators specific, evidence-based recommendations for teaching foundational reading skills to students in kindergarten through 3rd grade. The guide suggests…

The goal of the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Practice Guide, "Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten through 3rd Grade," is to offer educators specific, evidence-based recommendations for teaching foundational reading skills to students in kindergarten through 3rd grade. The guide suggests…

This reader-friendly text examines the key foundational studies in early literacy. It addresses such essential questions as how research informs current practices and where the field still needs to go to provide the best learning opportunities for all children. Each chapter describes the methods and findings of one to five seminal studies,…

Phoneme awareness, letter knowledge, and rapid automatized naming (RAN) are well-known kindergarten predictors of later word recognition skills, but it is not clear whether they predict developments in accuracy or speed, or both. The present longitudinal study of 172 Danish beginning readers found that speed of word recognition mainly developed…

Morphological processing by French children was investigated in two experiments. The first showed that second and third graders read pseudowords such as "chat-ure" ("cat-ish") composed of an illegally combined real stem and real derivational suffix faster and more accurately than they read matched pseudowords composed of a pseudostem and a real…

This study examined whether boys and girls in the early school years differed in reading and related skills, and their rates of progress. Gender ratios were calculated to ascertain whether there were more boys than girls who struggle with different facets of reading, and whether the variability of boys' scores resulted in more boys being…

The genetic factor structure of a range of learning measures was explored in twin children, recruited in preschool and followed to Grade 2 ("N"?=?2,084). Measures of orthographic learning and word reading were included in the analyses to determine how these patterned with the learning processes. An exploratory factor analysis of the…

The current study investigates how beginner readers learn to read Setswana and English, and whether there is cross-language transference of skills between these two languages. Letter knowledge, phoneme awareness and reading of words and pseudowords in both Setswana and English were assessed in 36 Grade 2 children. A complex pattern emerged.…

The usefulness of teaching vowel generalizations was studied using three treatment groups, with two second-grade classes in each treatment. The study was considered a pilot investigation to provide direction rather than a definitive research study. In Treatment 1, the McKee Reading for Meaning program was followed, including the teaching of all…

Reports on a study that investigated the ability of second grade students to listen to, infer, and produce the correct pronuciations of high-frequency words in a story-like context. (FL)

Considers if Hispanic and non-Hispanic second graders acquire knowledge of structural features of words in the same order and at the same rate. Reveals that both groups appear to be acquiring knowledge of the structural features of words at different rates, but in a roughly similar order with Hispanic learners lagging behind the non-Hispanic…

Examines the relationship between word recognition ability, knowledge of orthographic structures, and use of orthographic knowledge in word recognition. Finds that children with a second grade reading vocabulary demonstrate a generalized effect of orthographic structure when searching for multiple word targets and when searching for members of a…

Reports on a study that examined the abilities of first and second grade pupils to read true and altered spellings of words they had either previously read correctly or had misnamed. (HOD)

Examines the relationships among accuracy and latency of word recognition and comprehension by nonfluent readers and whether component letter or holistic processing was used in word recognition by these same readers. (HOD)