Two experiments explored rates for introducing grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) and the types of correspondences taught for optimal alphabet and early literacy skills learning. In both studies, children entered with minimal alphabet knowledge and were randomly assigned within classrooms to one of two treatments delivered individually over…

The development of beginning decoding and encoding skills is influenced by linguistic skills as well as executive functions (EFs). These higher-level cognitive processes include working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility, and individual differences in these EFs have been shown to contribute to early academic learning. The present study…

The current study explored a possible continuum of spelling features that children receiving literacy instruction in Spanish might be expected to master in Grades 1-3. We administered a developmental spelling inventory representing nine distinct Spanish spelling features to 864 students in bilingual and dual language schools across the U.S.…

Despite the poor outcomes for U.S. students on national writing tests, overall research on how to teach writing is sparse, and this scarcity is more pronounced in the early years of beginning to write. In this study 81,200 we present preliminary findings from Year 1 of a 3-year Institute of Education Sciences-funded Goal 2 project aimed at…

The goal of the current study was to determine whether Concept of Word in Text (COW-T) predicts later sight word reading achievement in Spanish, as it does in English. COW-T requires that children have beginning sound awareness, automatic recognition of letters and letter sounds, and the ability to coordinate these skills to finger point…

In the present study we examined the relation between alphabet knowledge fluency (letter names and sounds) and letter writing automaticity, and unique relations of letter writing automaticity and semantic knowledge (i.e., vocabulary) to word reading and spelling over and above code-related skills such as phonological awareness and alphabet…