Children's early knowledge and skills set the stage for later reading development. The present studies examined children's conceptual knowledge of reading prior to formal literacy instruction. Young children's knowledge about who is able to read books and what readers are reading when they read books has been studied primarily through interviews.…

This article presents the application of the interactive dynamic literacy (IDL) model (Kim, 2020b) toward understanding difficulties in learning to read and write. According to the IDL model, reading and writing are part of communicative acts that draw on largely shared processes and skills as well as unique processes and skills. As such, reading…

This article presents the application of the interactive dynamic literacy (IDL) model (Kim, 2020a) toward understanding difficulties in learning to read and write. According to the IDL model, reading and writing are part of communicative acts that draw on largely shared processes and skills as well as unique processes and skills. As such, reading…

Guided reading is an established and important approach in the pedagogical repertoire of teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand. Despite evidence suggesting that a strong foundation of literacy learning must be built before introducing guided reading, early initiation to this most intensive form of reading instruction has become commonplace. This study…

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a progressive genetic condition that affects both muscle and brain. Children with DMD are at risk of psycho-social difficulties such as poor academic achievement and behavioural and socio-emotional problems. This article by Janet Hoskin and Angela Fawcett, both from the University of Swansea, describes how 34…

The purpose of this study was to assess the role that phonological, orthographic, and contextual sources of information play in a group of adults who were learning to read compared to adult skilled readers. Participants read short paragraphs that contained a correct homophone, an incorrect homophone, or a spelling control. Target words were…

Discusses some of the problems associated with literacy in the United States. Reviews literature and trends related to semiliteracy, assessment, skilled readers, decoding difficulties, and comprehension difficulties. Considers several questions related to literacy and education. (CW)

Presents the results of a study on how adult illiterates process text, which showed that adults engaged in a greater degree of meaning-related processing and more graphemic and graphophonic processing in expository text. Adults were more successful with narrative text. (JC)

A project explored the reading comprehension skills and strategies of adult basic education (ABE) students. The target population was 55 students from 2 ABE programs in central Pennsylvania. They responded in interviews to a questionnaire that measured their knowledge about reading and reading comprehension strategies, and they participated in…

Low literate patients face difficulties when they read health care information. The complex process of reading can be summarized in five steps: input, decoding, encoding, output, and feedback. Each occurs automatically for the fluent reader; the low literate reader might encounter stumbling blocks in one or more of the steps. Once the patient has…

States that there is concern in Western nations that literacy rates are falling. Asserts Reading Recovery programs can reverse this trend. Reports on evaluation studies of Reading Recovery and contends that the short-term gains that result from Reading Recovery programs require further research. (CFR)

Noting that children in literate societies all learn the sound-symbol relationships of their languages but that orthographies, sound-symbol relationships, and societal attitudes toward literacy differ, the essays in this book explore both the universal and the culturally constrained aspects of the process of learning to read. Following an…

Explores how the emerging literacy stage emphasizes the child's primary role in his or her individual progression in becoming literate. Provides guidance to teachers and parents to promote a child's language experimentation by emphasizing a supportive environment and enhancing natural learning by encouraging reading to children, self-directed…

Reading is an essential part of science literacy, yet teachers often face challenges in incorporating reading in science classrooms. In this article, the authors share how they brought reading back into their science classrooms. They designed four quarterly reading projects with yearlong literacy routines that they used successfully with their…

A study compared the performances of adults who were learning to read with those of two groups of preliterate and second-grade children on selected cognitive tasks and on the display of certain metacognitive understandings. It was hypothesized that if the adults (who could not successfully read a passage from a fourth-grade reader) did as well as…