The ability to read is essential to school-based learning and skilled responding in an information rich society. Unfortunately, many students in today's schools do not become skilled readers. Many reading researchers (Blachman 1996, 1997; Felton, 1993; Fletcher & Lyon, 1998; Torgesen, 1997) agree that the vast majority of problems experienced…

The purpose of this paper is to describe the efficacy of early literacy interventions and to discuss possible roles for volunteer tutors in helping prevent reading difficulties within the Response to Intervention process. First, we describe a landmark study that evaluated the impact of primary classroom instruction on reducing the proportion of…

The aim of the research reported here was to investigate why a percentage of students experience continued difficulty in literacy learning while participating in Reading Recovery. It was hypothesized that this is to do with particular aspects of teacher-learner interactions. Accordingly the study used ethnographic methodology to describe…

Most children who do not learn to read during the primary grades will probably never learn to read well. Children who reach the end of third grade with low literacy skills typically have less access to the regular curriculum, require long-term support, and fall further behind their peers in literacy achievement and curricular knowledge. However,…

A large body of research evidence highlights the required conditions for children to become skilled readers. Within the past decade, research also has uncovered the fact that the origins of skilled reading begin to develop even before children start school. The intent of this article is to provide a brief summary of what is known about the…

"Reading Recovery"[R] is a short-term tutoring intervention program intended to serve the lowest achieving (bottom 20%) first-grade students. Students are chosen for "Reading Recovery"[R] by school staff, and selection is based on prior reading achievement, diagnostic testing (the Clay Observation Survey of Early Literacy…

This study reports the results of a peer-mediated intervention, total class peer tutoring, on the academic performance of six urban students at risk for reading failure. A multiple baseline design across subjects was used to evaluate the effects of this intervention. The results showed that five of the six students significantly increased their…

Many parents question what is normal and what their kids should be doing at different ages. More and more, parents are turning to their local libraries for advice. Besides being empathetic supporters and referring parents to the rich resources within our libraries that detail language-development milestones for young children, librarians need to…

In this article I critique six quantitative studies of Reading Recovery and five reviews of Reading Recovery research published in Tier 1 research journals--journals accepted as having high levels of "expert scrutiny" through peer review. I also critique several quantitative research studies of Reading Recovery published in Tier 2…

Just a few years ago, a set of tests known as "dibbles" would have elicited little more than a chuckle from educators or anyone else. Today, they're taking it seriously, because the acronym DIBELS has come to symbolize the standard for early-literacy assessment throughout much of the country. Teachers in Reading First schools in more…

In the field of special education, educators and researchers are continually searching for effective methods that might improve the academic or behavioral performance of students that are at risk or are identified with special needs. The need for effective methods is particularly salient with regard to those students identified with or at risk for…

This study examines the effectiveness of a one-on-one reading intervention using trained tutors. Participants were 49 first-grade students at risk for reading failure. The three-step tutoring model included repeated reading of familiar text, explicit coaching in decoding and word-solving strategies, and reading new books during each 15-minute…

This article looks closely at a subset of books about literacy in and out of school by analyzing images of children learning and struggling to learn to read in realistic fiction. There are several books in which characters wish to learn to read, worry about being poor readers, and work hard to learn to read. These books raise important questions…

The purpose of this report is to provide education professors teaching early literacy methods courses with information for beginning teachers to support struggling first-grade readers. This analysis identifies the specific word structures children are expected to know by the end of first grade, and shows the actual learning rates of these…

The ways in which the Reading Recovery Programme supports children with reading difficulties is considered in this article within the context of the national development of the programme in England which began in the 1990s. We go on to describe the implementation of this early intervention programme in one London LEA. We then compare the Early…