This study attempted to provide a systematic framework for phonics instruction for beginning readers in literature-based classrooms based on relative frequency of phoneme-grapheme occurrences found in three distinct corpora. The first corpus contained an academic word list. The second corpus contained the running text from 363 books identified as…

This study investigated preschool teachers' beliefs and practices regarding the use of computer technology in teaching reading and writing in Jordan. The researcher developed a questionnaire consisting of two scales--Teachers' Beliefs Scale (TB Scale) and Teachers' Practices Scale (TP Scale)--to examine the role of computer technology in teaching…

Children start asking questions as soon as they speak their first sentences. And they continue to ask them at home and in the classroom if adults let them. Mosaic of Thought (Keene and Zimmermann 2007) has provided the author with a "field guide" to both her son's questions at home and her second-grade students' questions in the classroom. Keene…

What is environmental print? It is symbols all around. Environmental print is on signs, billboards, packages, junk mail, and everywhere. Young children easily recognize environmental print in their surroundings. Their everyday experiences with print are an important classroom tool to help children connect what they already know about written…

In this study, we examined 56 first-grade struggling readers' phonics and reading achievement in classrooms served by SRA Reading Mastery, a scripted model of early reading instruction against the achievement of 52 first-grade struggling readers in classrooms served by one of four other, non-scripted reading models. We also studied the…

This study examined the influences of problem behaviors on kindergarten reading outcomes and investigated the extent to which explicit, code-based reading instruction moderated those relations among 206 children identified as being at risk of reading difficulty. Children from the classrooms of 57 kindergarten teachers in 12 schools were randomly…

In this article, the author examines the troubled history of the relationship between research and practice in the area of early reading instruction. He describes how researchers have historically addressed controversies about reading instruction and explains why good research seems to have a delayed and limited impact on reading policy and…

This study examines the effects on early reading skills of three different methods of presenting material with computer-assisted instruction (CAI): (1) learner-controlled picture menu, which allows the student to choose activities, (2) linear sequencer, which progresses the students through lessons at a pre-specified pace, and (3) mastery-based…

The No Child Let Behind Act of 2001 created the Reading First program to help ensure that all students could read at or above grade level by the end of grade 3. The program promotes practices recommended by the National Reading Panel for early reading instruction, highlighting five essential components of reading instruction. The program invested…

This intervention study tested whether invented spelling plays a causal role in learning to read. Three groups of kindergarten children (mean age = 5 years 7 months) participated in a 4-week intervention. Children in the invented-spelling group spelled words as best they could and received developmentally appropriate feedback. Children in the 2…

Teaching students with intellectual disabilities (ID) to read is extremely challenging. Fortunately, the outlook for students with ID is improving because we now know much more about how to teach reading to students who struggle, including those with ID. The central theme of this article is that reading instruction for students with ID must be a…

Direct quotation can be a source of meaning in storybook texts for beginning readers. The author of this article sketches the linguistic complexity of direct quotation and offers instructional strategies. Three aspects of direct quotation are examined: the cluster of print features and syntactic characteristics that direct quotation involves, the…

The setting of this study took place in an inner city. The purpose was to determine the effectiveness of a neurologically integrated approach in teaching 43 at-risk pre-first graders their letter sounds and formations during 45-50 hours of summer school. There were four sequential phases to teaching this alphabetic approach: imagery, auditory,…

The "Rose Review", a so-called "Independent Review of the Teaching of Early Reading", was published by the British Government's Department for Education and Skills in March 2006, as a result of criticism from Members of Parliament and others, and dissatisfaction with certain aspects of the National Literacy Strategy in England.…

Presenting a broad range of instructional programs and practices that are proven effective for students with behavioral disorders, this is the first resource of its kind for K-3 teachers and special educators. Described are clear-cut strategies for promoting mastery and fluency in early reading, writing, and math, while tailoring instruction to…