This study was designed to highlight how students best learn to learn to read, best practices of reading instruction, innovative resources, and effective instructional strategies. The aim of this dissertation was to address the problem of kindergarten through fourth grade students in the United States not reading on grade level. The purpose of…

This study examined the provision of supplemental instruction using constant time delay for struggling readers who had fallen behind in developing word-blending skills. Additionally, the study examined the utility of adding a material reward contingency to the instructional program with a contingency derived from percentile-shaping procedures.…

Background: The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of Structured Word Inquiry (SWI; an orthography intervention with a focus on morphology and how morphology interrelates with phonology and etymology) and Simplicity intervention (a novel phonics intervention) on the reading and spelling skills of persistently poor Grade 3 readers.…

Over the past decade, parent advocacy groups led a grassroots movement resulting in most states adopting dyslexia-specific legislation, with many states mandating the use of the Orton-Gillingham approach to reading instruction. Orton-Gillingham is a direct, explicit, multisensory, structured, sequential, diagnostic, and prescriptive approach to…

Upper elementary readers who persist with reading difficulties face both academic and emotional challenges when they do not make reading gains equal to their peers. Decades of research has shown that persistent treatment resisters respond positively to a systematic multisensory phonics intervention. In my action research study, I examined how 5th…

For the purpose of this article within this special issue on Structured Literacy™, we were asked to address the code-focused skills of phonemic awareness and word reading. Findings from research studies converge to show that explicit and systematic instruction helps most students understand how speech sounds, or phonemes, map to letters and…

Learning to read is an expectation rather than an exception in society today. Despite this, some children experience reading difficulties. The purpose of this article is to review recent and seminal research on reading difficulties through the lenses of three perspectives: cognitive, social and cultural and interactive. The three perspectives are…

The twenty-first century Reading War is, in fact, nothing new, but some of the details are unique to our current culture driven by social media. This volume seeks to examine the current Reading War in the context of the historical recurrence of public and political debates around student reading abilities and achievement. Grounded in a media…

Complexity of the various needs that come with English language learners (ELLs) beyond language learning (such as learning gaps, social and cultural differences, etc.) and increased numbers of English language learners in Canadian schools have led educational stakeholders to seek ways to promote reading improvement. While literature points out the…

Purpose: Reading and writing are language-based skills, and effective literacy instruction/intervention practices should include an explicit linguistic focus. A multilinguistic structured literacy approach that integrates morphological awareness is proven beneficial to improve reading and writing for students with language literacy deficits. The…

Current conversations about children's literacy have focused on the need for more phonics and decoding instruction and have sidelined the importance of children's language development, argues George Hruby. Language development involves more than the ability to decode written language. The ability to understand the meaning of those words is also…

This study examined a literacy program that targeted students most at risk of reading difficulties in kindergarten and first grade of 12 Swedish schools. The program used multi-sensory learning methods that focused on phonological awareness and phonics, and was delivered during 10 weeks over 30-35 sessions by teachers in a one-to-one or one-to-two…

Individuals with fragile X syndrome (FXS) present with significant deficits in reading skills, but scant research exists to understand the characteristics of the reading delays or best practices for reading instruction with this population. Study 1 examined the relationship between phonological awareness and reading skills in individuals with FXS.…

The purpose of this study was to determine which of four Response to Intervention (RTI) programs, System 44, Read 180, Lexia Reading Core5, or Read Naturally, was most effective for alleviating phonics and phonemic awareness reading deficits in students struggling to read fluently and comprehensively. The problem related to this research is that…

This article is a report of recent evidence on methods for teaching young and struggling readers to read words. Specifically, evidence comparing synthetic and analytic phonics instruction was reviewed as well as the benefit of instruction in encoding and morphological awareness. The evidence reviewed suggests that instruction in synthetic and…