Background: Despite evidence that synthetic phonics teaching has increased reading attainments, a sizable minority of children struggle to acquire phonics skills and teachers lack clear principles for deciding what types of "additional" support are most beneficial. Synthetic phonics teaches children to read using a decoding strategy to…

The aim of this study is to use augmented reality and hands-on activity with phonics cubes to create an augmented reality English learning system named the Rolling Alphabet-AR System to investigate its impact on English learning, flow experience, and English self-efficacy for sixth graders. This study adopted quasi-experimental research on 114…

A nonrandomized quasi-experimental, mixed-method double pretest-posttest design was used to compare the effects of a multilinguistic word study model of instruction -- RAVE-O program (Wolf, Miller, & Donnelly, 2000) -- in comparison with a phonics word study model of instruction -- Fountas and Pinnell Phonics Lessons -- Letters, words, and how…

To better understand the impact of using e-books on students' reading outcomes, we conducted a meta-analysis of 14 studies with students in grades K-12 published between 2007 and 2018. Findings revealed an average effect size across all studies and reading outcomes of 0.9 that did not differ significantly from zero. There was also no statistically…

To better understand the impact of using e-books on students' reading outcomes, we conducted a meta-analysis of 14 studies with students in grades K-12 published between 2007 and 2018. Findings revealed an average effect size across all studies and reading outcomes of 0.9 that did not differ significantly from zero. There was also no statistically…

In the high-stakes accountability English educational system, decisions made by government and agencies about curriculum, pedagogy and assessment drive school planning and actions. This paper analyses the drivers for the recent change to French German and Spanish GCSEs and highlights particular areas of the new specification which may damage the…

A survey of primary schools in England found that girls outperform boys in English across all phases (Ofsted in Moving English forward. Ofsted, Manchester, 2012). The gender gap remains an on-going issue in England, especially for reading attainment. This paper presents evidence of gender differences in learning to read that emerged during the…

The growing number of students whose primary language does not match the language of their schools and a steadily growing performance gap has prompted widespread attention to support emergent literacy gains for those students. This study randomly assigned schools in a Southwestern U.S. state with English language learners (ELLs) in kindergarten…

Vocabulary acquisition is central to language learning, and many instructors believe that technology can facilitate this core activity. While numerous websites and apps offer language-learning activities and games, not all provide evidence that their content and techniques are effective. VocabularySpellingCity (VSC), however, commissioned a study…

Findings are presented from a two-year longitudinal study involving the "Quick60 Foundation" programme for beginning readers. This programme is a 32 week whole-class literacy curriculum that systematically and explicitly teaches key early literacy skills. End of Year 2 literacy performances of students receiving this programme during…

The findings of a best-evidence synthesis of the collateral effect of literacy instruction on the social adjustment of students are reported. The goal of the synthesis was to extend the work of Wanzek, Vaughn, Kim, and Cavanaugh (2006) by (a) reviewing treatment-outcomes conducted using group design methodology; (b) focusing on a more defined set…

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of whole language versus phonics on reading achievement. Four second-grade students participated--two were chosen for a control sample in which they were taught using the modified whole language approach; and two were chosen for the experimental sample and were taught using the modified…

An experiment was developed under the assumption that learning about word families could help ease the introduction of short vowels to first grade students. The hypothesis was that teaching the word families would increase students' reading vocabulary, in contrast to the learning acquired by students taught only phonetic analysis. The control…

Concludes that three experimental programs were more effective than traditional approaches in beginning reading instruction: (1) a literature program using special decoding strategies, (2) a literature program not using the special strategies, and (3) a traditional basal approach using the special decoding strategies. (FL)

The present study replicated the original evaluation of the Howard Street tutoring model (Morris, Shaw, & Perney, Perney, 1990), an intervention for struggling readers in second and third grade. It also evaluated the effectiveness of supervised paraprofessionals (Title I aides) in delivering that tutorial. For an entire school year, teachers or…