This article contributes to understanding the effectiveness of early grade reading interventions in low-income-country contexts and how and why such interventions vary in their effectiveness across schools. It presents the results from an impact evaluation of an early grade reading intervention in Haiti with a mixed-methods analysis of factors…

The article explores the importance of early reading proficiency and its long-term impact on academic and life outcomes, particularly in Romania. Analyzing PISA data, the article highlights significant literacy gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students, as well as urban and rural learners. These disparities perpetuate intergenerational…

Many South African children struggle in acquiring literacy and reading skills. It seems as if caregivers may be missing an important aspect in guiding children's emergent reading development. The question is whether there are underlying concepts needed for emergent literacy and the acquisition of reading skills. The nature of the reading process…

This article presents an overview of literacy teaching and learning, based on the author's extensive research and, in particular, the recently revised and extended "Learning to be Literate: Insights from Research for Policy and Practice" (Routledge, 2016). It is set against a background in England in which government policy dictates…

As governments, donors and implementation organisations re-focus Education for All Goals in terms of quality of education, increasing concerns have been raised over low literacy levels in developing countries. This paper provides key learning from the application of an early reading intervention applied in post-conflict Liberia, which included a…

In recent years, the Education for All movement has focused more intensely on the quality of education, rather than simply provision. Many recent and current education quality interventions focus on literacy, which is the core skill required for further academic success. Despite this focus on the quality of literacy instruction in developing…

The research explores the impact of interactive, multimedia literacy software (ABRA) on the reading skills of early elementary students in Kenya. Twelve grade two English teachers and their students from six schools were randomly divided in half: an experimental group (N = 180) where ABRA was part of their English Language instruction and a…

This report describes a cluster randomized control trial (RCT) intervention study of the effectiveness of the ABRACADABRA (ABRA) Web-based literacy system using a classroom-level RCT intervention with 1,067 children in 74 kindergarten and Grade 1 or Grade 1/2 classrooms across Canada. The authors closely followed the CONSORT criteria for executing…

Background: Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is associated with phonological awareness, reading, and spelling deficits. Comparing literacy skills in CAS with other developmental speech disorders is critical for understanding the complexity of the disorder. Aims: This study compared the phonological awareness and reading development of children…

A sample of 83 kindergarten teachers participated in this study to examine their knowledge, skills, and classroom practices concerning phonological awareness. Analyses of data revealed significant gaps between knowledge and practice, knowledge and skills, and skills and practice. The gap between knowledge and skills, on one hand, and classroom…

Vocabulary growth was suggested to prompt the implementation of increasingly finer-grained lexical representations of spoken words in children (e.g., [Metsala, J. L., & Walley, A. C. (1998). "Spoken vocabulary growth and the segmental restructuring of lexical representations: precursors to phonemic awareness and early reading…

Observations of spontaneous behaviors and comments of one child pertinent to emergent literacy are reported. The following areas are addressed: letter/numeral naming; the meaning of print; the communicative function of print; conception of meaning-units or words; language games; awareness of the sound of language; and the relationship between…

This paper explores reading for pleasure, its importance, and its impact on literacy attainment and other outcomes and reviews much of the research on the importance of reading for pleasure. A debate has been rife in the UK over the past few years as to how best to teach children to read, which culminated in an "Independent Review of the…

The purpose of a 1992 course on emergent literacy in early childhood education was to formulate a shared definition of literacy; create awareness of the developmental process involved; test previous assumptions, methods, and techniques in the light of new knowledge; and develop pedagogic approaches and curricula relevant to the existing conditions…

Concludes that, at the beginning of their school careers, children are quite different as far as reading and writing are concerned, and that there are certain universal prerequisites to reading and writing that may be termed "metalinguistic skills." (FL)