"Words Their Way"[TM] is an approach to phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction for students in kindergarten through high school. The program can be implemented as a core or supplemental curriculum and aims to provide a practical way to study words with students. The purpose of word study (which involves examining, manipulating,…

Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS) is a peer-tutoring program. According to the developer's web site, it is designed to be incorporated into the existing curriculum with the goal of improving the academic performance of children with diverse academic needs. Teachers train students to use PALS procedures. Students partner with peers,…

"Earobics"[R] is interactive software that provides students in pre-K through third grade with individual, systematic instruction in early literacy skills as students interact with animated characters. "Earobics[R] Foundations" is a version for pre-Kindergarten, Kindergarten, and first graders. "Earobics[R]…

To determine whether preservice teachers could articulate, in writing, appropriate instructional strategies for teaching phonics, a study surveyed 83 elementary education students selected randomly from all students enrolled in a reading methods course at Brigham Young University. Students completed one of three questionnaires assessing what…

The ability of 50 kindergarten children to discriminate and produce the phonemes typically used in early phonic-based reading instruction was investigated in matching-to-sample discrimination task and an echoic production task. The phonemes were presented to each child in isolation and in a word context in both tasks. The average time required to…

Based on the premise that schools apparently fail to match reading instruction to children's needs, this study was conducted to learn about the process of changing teacher behavior in such a way that a match exists between what is taught and who is being taught. Year-long observation of one kindergarten program that was supplemented with attempts…

This study examined first grade children's spelling of vowel sounds in relationship to the spellings these children were taught in their reading series and to the phonological aspects of the sounds. The subjects for the study were 12 first graders, six boys and six girls, in a public school in a Boston suburb. Written work done in school was…

Reports the results of a study of 7- to 11-year-old boys (n=100) designed to explore the use of visual and auditory information in learning to spell. Results showed that only with 10- and 11-year-olds did visual information produce better results than auditory presentation alone. (JDH)

This chapter is part of a book that recounts the year's work at the Early Childhood Development Center (ECDC) at Texas A & M University-Corpus Christi. Rather than an "elitist" laboratory school for the children of university faculty, the dual-language ECDC is a collaboration between the Corpus Christi Independent School District and…