Background: In 2018, it was found that only a quarter of Grade 3 children in India were reading at grade level. A growing demand for English education has further limited children's literacy achievement. Despite a strong evidence base in favour of using systematic phonics for building English literacy skills, many teachers in India continue to use…

In this longitudinal study, the word-level reading trajectories of 118 children were tracked alongside teachers' reported concerns and types of support provided through Grades 1, 2 and 3. Results show a significant decline in composite scores relative to age norms over time, with children achieving significantly lower in phonemic decoding than…

In this quasi-experimental study, the researchers examined the effects of implementing Readers Theatre in a second grade classroom, comprised of seven and eight-year-old students. The 70 subjects were chosen as a non-probability sample from two different classes and served as the treatment (n = 29) and comparison (n = 41) groups. A repeated…

"Literacy Strong All Year Long: Powerful Lessons for Grades K-2" equips educators of young children with engaging lessons that motivate students and help them develop the solid foundation of literacy skills essential to learning. Thoughtfully designed lessons linked to specific literacy standards create a seamless flow of learning…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of word boxes on the phoneme segmentation, word identification, and spelling performance of a sample of children with autism. Three children with autism were selected on the basis of similar performance on early literacy skills as measured by the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills…

Strategic Incremental Rehearsal (SIR) is a recently developed flashcard intervention that blends Traditional Drill with Incremental Rehearsal (IR) for teaching sight words. The initial study evaluating SIR found it was more effective than IR for teaching sight words to first-grade students. However, that study failed to assess efficiency, which is…

This is a companion to the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) practice guide, "Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten through 3rd Grade" (ED566956). This guide is organized according to the four recommendations and how-to steps from the WWC practice guide. The activities follow the typical developmental…

The purpose of this quantitative quasi-experimental group comparison study using a repeated measures comparison group design with random assignment of subjects to groups was to investigate the effects of handwriting instruction on reading progress for learners in grade 1 and grade 2. At three points in time, the number of words each student read…

The goal of the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Practice Guide, "Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten through 3rd Grade," is to offer educators specific, evidence-based recommendations for teaching foundational reading skills to students in kindergarten through 3rd grade. The guide suggests…

The study explored the moderating role of rapid automatized naming (RAN) in reading achievement through a cusp-catastrophe model grounded on nonlinear dynamic systems theory. Data were obtained from a community sample of 496 second through fourth graders who were followed longitudinally over 2 years and split into 2 random subsamples (validation…

Teachers' interactions with children represent an important source of influence in children's learning and development. Classroom organization, or the way the teacher manages the physical and behavioral aspects of the classroom environment, is one way that teachers can provide needed support to students who might otherwise struggle to be…

Traditional drill and practice (TDP) and incremental rehearsal (IR) are flashcard drill techniques for teaching sight words to students. Although both have extensive research support, no study to date has compared these methods with children who have autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Utilizing an adaptive alternating treatments design, the present…

The goal of the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Practice Guide, "Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten through 3rd Grade," is to offer educators specific, evidence-based recommendations for teaching foundational reading skills to students in kindergarten through 3rd grade. The guide suggests…

This study used a within-subjects design to explore two instructional conditions for developing vocabulary in second-grade Spanish-speaking English learners (ELs)--extended instruction and embedded instruction implemented during shared interactive reading. Words assigned to the extended condition were directly taught using a multifaceted approach…

Reading is a skill that is necessary to be successful both academically and professionally in today's society. Thus, it is essential that educators work with students to develop their reading skills and help them become proficient readers (Otto, 2008). This study concurrently implemented a phonics-based reading intervention and a sight-word…