In elementary school, an important goal of reading instruction is to enable children to read most words automatically by sight so that they can focus on learning from and enjoying what they are reading. But becoming a strong reader takes several years. Parents and caregivers need to know if a child is making good progress in learning to read.…

Veteran teacher Rachel Harbison used vivid stories to involve kindergartners in sociodramatic play to motivate reading acquisition. Children learned through staged events that a mischievous Word Queen had planted "tricks" in the alphabet (i.e., the irregularities in English spelling) to prevent children from learning to read. The…

This study was designed to explore the effectiveness of balanced literacy instruction in two pre-kindergarten programs in a North Eastern suburban school district. The researcher used a mixed-methods design which included classroom observations, student performance data, and teacher interviews to determine if the language arts program produced…

Nurturing reading proficiency among the Nigerian children has become pivotal to a functional and development-oriented education. The place of phonics in achieving this strategic goal seems unquestionable with attendant entrepreneurial opportunities for early childhood educators. This study therefore, investigates the influence of phonics in…

Teaching systematic phonics effectively to beginning readers requires specialized knowledge and training which many primary grade teachers lack. The current study examined effects of a year-long mentoring program to improve teachers' knowledge and effectiveness in teaching phonics and the extent that it improved students' achievement in reading…

This research study investigated the at-home literacy behaviors and experiences of young children before and during their kindergarten year. Research has shown that the frequency and quality of at-home literacy experiences can either hinder or hamper children as their formal schooling begins (Fletcher, Cross, Tanney, Schneider, & Finch, 2008;…