Students have the right to learn to read as part of their free, appropriate, public education. Yet current assessment data reveal that a substantial number of students in American public-schools are not able to read at a proficient level. If we desire improved student outcomes in reading, we must work for improved instruction in foundational…

This quantitative exploratory causal-comparative study investigated the relationship between public and private K-3 schoolteachers' perceptions of their pedagogical content knowledge and instructional practices of phonemic awareness and phonics, the two best predictors of reading comprehension proficiency. Gough and Tunmer's (1986) Simple View of…

As the number of English Learners in United States classrooms continues to increase, understanding how to best instruct these learners in reading acquisition is important. This study used a mixed-methods, casual-comparative research design to examine the differences in teacher perceptions between those who used a phonics-based approach to reading…

The Phonics Screening Check (PSC) was introduced in England in 2012 for Year 1 children (aged 5 and 6). There have been criticisms of the check in relation to its reliability and appropriateness as an assessment for early reading, although advocates of the check see it as a valuable tool in securing progress in early reading. This mixed methods…

The study was conducted to describe how third graders, teachers, and interventionists perceive the influence of a phonics treatment program on the reading achievement of third-grade students in a school in the Western United States. The study was guided by the research questions on the perceptions of students, teachers, and interventionists on the…

Almost 20% of English pupils still experience difficulties with reading despite the use of a predominantly phonics-based approach that works well for most children, but not for all; therefore, other approaches need to be explored. The Integrated Group Reading (IGR) programme involves an inclusive approach to targeted teaching led by class teachers…

The paper highlights problems surrounding the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check that has accompanied the legislative framework for synthetic phonics in English primary schools. It investigates the inclusion of pseudowords and raises questions regarding their generation and categorization, the rationale for their inclusion and the assumption that the…

Based on a first grade teacher's search for approaches to promote successful reading acquisition in her first grade classroom, the authors present a curricular engagement in which the teacher explored using music, specifically singing songs, as a fun and motivating way to accelerate reading progress. The premise is that singing (while at the…

Elementary teachers of reading have one essential goal--to prepare diverse children to be independent, strategic readers in real life. This innovative text helps preservice and inservice teachers achieve this goal by providing knowledge and research-based strategies for teaching phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, all aspects of…

This article examines the ways in which the poetry strand of literacy instruction can help teachers infuse geography into the elementary classroom. Teachers can use poems to target important aspects of reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. When the poems contain substantive geography…

"The Electric Company" ("TEC") television show won the hearts of children because it made learning fun. Thirty years later, the iconic show has returned with the goal of not only teaching literacy, but also numeracy (the ability to work with and understand numbers) and mathematics vocabulary in a fun, entertaining, and engaging…

Elementary preservice and classroom teachers were given a nonsense word test and a test of phonetic generalizations to determine if teachers can use their knowledge of phonetic generalizations when pronouncing unknown nonsense words, and if there is a relationship between the ability to pronounce unknown nonsense words and knowledge of phonetic…

A study examined 78 experienced Northwest Ohio elementary school teachers' orientation toward whole language, teacher-made, and state-mandated tests. The teachers also described their grading policies and distributions and their attitudes toward basal readers and phonics skills. The majority (56%) labeled themselves as over 50% "whole…

A descriptive study used survey methodology to determine first-grade teachers' theoretical orientations toward reading and students' attitudes toward reading, as well as structured classroom observations to describe teachers' reading instructional practices. Subjects, 259 of the 428 first-grade teachers (61%) in 94 elementary schools of a large…

Research was conducted to evaluate how well the "Indiana Reading Assessment--Grade 1" evaluates various reading skills of grade one students. Multiple analyses were conducted; while the results of all the analyses were encouraging, the results derived from the concurrent validity study were most significant. All the correlations were…