Early reading intervention is crucial to ensure all students develop strong foundational literacy skills for academic and lifelong success. This Spotlight will help readers investigate the benefits of tutoring on early reading skills; identify how to build students' reading stamina; gain insights into knowledge-building curricula; review the…

Background: Beginning reading skills are often taught using phonics. Research has demonstrated the effectiveness of phonics with typically developing students, but less research has evaluated this method with students with intellectual disabilities. Method: This paper evaluated the computerized phonics-based intervention Headsprout Early Reading®…

Many South African children struggle in acquiring literacy and reading skills. It seems as if caregivers may be missing an important aspect in guiding children's emergent reading development. The question is whether there are underlying concepts needed for emergent literacy and the acquisition of reading skills. The nature of the reading process…

Research Findings: In this study, 88 kindergartners received special training in lexical compounding, homophone awareness, or phonological awareness or were assigned to a control condition over a period of approximately 2 months, with 20-min lessons administered twice per week. Chinese word reading improved significantly more in the lexical…

This article queries whether consonant sonority (sonorant vs. obstruent) and status (coda vs. onset) within intervocalic clusters influence syllable-based segmentation strategies. We used a modified version of the illusory conjunction paradigm to test whether French beginning, intermediate, and advanced readers were sensitive to an optimal…

An analysis of large and influential published reviews of research pertaining to the reading acquisition of young struggling readers in the early years of schooling was undertaken. The reviews were selected on the basis that they either had been commissioned by federal governments or had been conducted by reputable research institutions and had…

Purpose: This study had 2 principal aims: (a) to examine whether children who spoke Nonmainstream American English (NMAE) frequently in school at the end of kindergarten increased their production of Mainstream American English (MAE) forms by the end of first grade, and (b) to examine concurrent and predictive relations between children's NMAE use…

Purpose: This study assessed the effectiveness of a Tier 2 intervention that was designed to increase the phonemic awareness skills of low-income preschoolers who were enrolled in Early Reading First classrooms. Method: Thirty-four preschoolers participated in a multiple baseline across participants treatment design. Tier 2 intervention for…

The study examined whether preschoolers who were exposed to a media-rich literacy curriculum had better early reading skills than preschoolers who were exposed to a media-rich science curriculum. The study randomly assigned 80 preschool classes to incorporate either a media-rich literacy curriculum or a media-rich science curriculum. The final…

Building crucial bridges between theory, research, and practice, this volume brings together leading authorities on the literacy development of young children. The "Handbook" examines the full range of factors that shape learning in and out of the classroom, from basic developmental processes to family and sociocultural contexts,…

The purpose of this study was to examine a model of early reading acquisition that hinged on a phenomenon seldom explored in beginning reading research: a child's concept of word in text. Previous research in early literacy acquisition has centered on the role phonological awareness--the ability to consciously attend to and manipulate the sound…

This study examined the validity of Nonsense Word Fluency as an index of beginning reading proficiency for students in kindergarten through second grade. Validity evidence for Nonsense Word Fluency is addressed in the context of research-based instructional practices implemented on a large scale. Technical adequacy data are presented for all…

Beginning reading software programs may be one way to provide at-risk readers the additional instruction and practice they need to attain grade-level expectations. Criteria such as interface design, instructional design, and beginning reading content (phonological awareness and alphabetic understanding) are all important considerations when…

Discusses what it would take to end reading failure in the U.S., examining what is already known, looking at the problem of early reading, and presenting a comprehensive strategy for reading by age 9 that involves dissemination of existing best practices, basic and applied research on beginning reading, and development and evaluation of new…

Japanese preschool children begin to read at home at age four without any formal instruction or reading readiness programs, and the development of their reading abilities in the preschool stage is mainly up to the parents. A new reading program will be needed for the sake of children with parents who are not sufficiently concerned about reading.…