This qualitative case study examined the contribution a year-long professional development in the science of reading had on 10 first-grade teachers' knowledge of how reading develops and their instructional practices. Data for this research study was collected through a longitudinal interview process, from pre- and post-knowledge inventory…

This study describes trajectories of early literacy skill development of 99 children (n = 55 boys) in their first year of primary school in New Zealand (NZ). Children were assessed twice weekly for 8 weeks on Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS; Good & Kaminski, 2011) First Sound Fluency (FSF) and AIMSweb Letter Sound…

The statutory "phonics screening check" was introduced in 2012 and reflects the current emphasis in England on teaching early reading through systematic synthetic phonics. The check is intended to assess children's phonic abilities and their knowledge of 85 grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) through decoding 20 real words and 20…

This study examined the predictive validity of a computer-adaptive assessment for measuring kindergarten reading skills using the STAR Early Literacy (SEL) test. The findings showed that the results of SEL assessments administered during the fall, winter, and spring of kindergarten were moderate and statistically significant predictors of year-end…

The article by Speece (in this issue) underscores the disappointing accuracy results of early screening for reading difficulties and argues that development conceptualized as rate of learning matters. We respond by emphasizing three points. First, the purpose of early screening could be identifying students not at risk so that instructional…