This scoping review explores the causal relationship between morphological instruction and reading development in young L2 learners by synthesizing 12 primary studies published between 2004 and 2019 (N = 1,535). These studies focused on reading English as the target language and involved participants between kindergarten and Grade 12 from four…

Digital literacies abound in playing a foundational role in the rhythm and pattern of our lives, yet debates continue about how to harness them to teach and learn literacy. In an effort to humanize digital literacies, this department column offers a vast array of topics, from participatory work that pushes educators and researchers to communicate…

The "IDRA Newsletter" serves as a vehicle for communication with educators, school board members, decision-makers, parents, and the general public concerning the educational needs of all children in Texas and across the United States. The theme of this issue is English Learner Literacy. Articles include: (1) School Leaders Improve…

Against the backdrop of growing international concern for a narrowing view of early literacy, this study was initiated to determine how teachers of four-year-olds view their task of fostering early literacy. This paper reports on the first steps to design and validate an instrument which captures teachers' perceptions of early literacy content…

This study investigated effective teaching factors and student reading strategies as predictors of student reading achievement in the United States and China. Participants were 10,348 students in the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) study, 5115 from China and 5233 from the United States. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA)…

For a number of years now, South Africa, like many other countries, has been debating a major paradigm shift in education, a shift from learning and teaching, which focused primarily on content to learning and teaching focused on outcomes. One of the most dramatic trends in education over the past decade has been the shift towards the use of…

Ironically, at a time when coaching seems to have come into its own as a way to improve teacher practice, school districts across the United States are experiencing funding cuts and eliminating coaching positions. The threats that budget woes pose to established school coaching programs led the authors to ask themselves what practices schools and…

This essay offers a commentary on how the relationship between language and literacy practices in and out of school has been conceptualized. It draws upon two new books in the field. Shirley Brice Heath's new book, "Words at Work and Play: Three Decades in Family and Community Life," which makes use of rich ethnographic accounts of…

Although most young children seem to master reading skills in the early grades of elementary school, many struggle with texts as they move through middle school and high school. Why do children who seem to be proficient readers in third grade have trouble comprehending texts in later grades? To answer this question, Nonie Lesaux describes what is…

Despite the need for braille literacy, there has been little attempt to systematically evaluate braille-instruction programs. The current study evaluated an instructive procedure for teaching early braille-reading skills with 4 school-aged children with degenerative visual impairments. Following a series of pretests, braille instruction involved…

The high level of acceptance in US society of the preschool years as a critically important time for building early literacy skills has led to a flurry of activity in early childhood research and policy. The National Early Literacy Panel (NELP) report "Developing Early Literacy" (2008) is one example of this activity. The NELP report is…

The state of reading proficiency in the United States has been under attack for decades. Attempts to improve reading achievement through instructional practices have taken the profession through the "reading wars" to "balanced-reading" to "evidenced-based" methods. Unfortunately, the professional development of…

This commentary invites Americans to confront what these authors view as the travesty that typically passes for literacy instruction for older youth in the United States who struggle with reading. In too many U.S. schools, these young people face an impoverished curriculum, receiving literacy instruction that is ill suited to their needs, or…

This article is a review of the literature related to the reading attitudes and the instructional methods of teaching reading. The article provides a synthesis of previous studies on the reading attitudes of elementary school students in the United States and also addresses a brief review of literature on historic and traditional methods of…

The Partnership for Reading (PFR) in the United States has recently thrown its hat into the ring of adult literacy research and practice. Its information about adult literacy comes, almost entirely, from the National Reading Panel's (NRP) data on children. Building its case from the NRP data, the PFR advocates for a narrow, school-based conception…