A study evaluated the Schoolwide Early Language and Literacy (SWELL) program using four Australian disadvantaged schools. Two schools implemented the program in the kindergarten year, while the other two schools pursued regular kindergarten curriculum. Children in the program outperformed others on words read in context, but not on words read in…

Reports on the effects of meaning negotiation on young children's acquisition of English-as-a-Second-Language word meanings while they listened individually and in small groups to directions containing words unknown to them and to encouragement to negotiate their understanding of the directions. Results show that the children varied in their…

A study investigated the effectiveness of a 4-second time delay instructional package and language of instruction on the learning of English sight words and incidental information by 4 Puerto Rican middle school students with mental retardation. Both Spanish and English time delay conditions were equally effective and efficient for 3 participants.…

Discusses the increased literacy emphasis in schools and how early childhood programs can provide an enriched literacy environment. Defines and provides suggestions for activities related to basic literacy concepts: listening comprehension, phonological awareness, reading motivation, written expression, letter and early word recognition, and…

A survey of 549 kindergarten and first grade teachers examined attitudes toward, and knowledge of, beginning reading practices that have been shown to prevent reading failure, including explicit instruction in phonemic awareness and word identification skills. Teachers generally had positive attitudes toward explicit reading approaches, especially…

The relative effectiveness of 3 instructional procedures (sight word, fading, tactile-kinesthetic) in teaching 32 students (age 9-20) with moderate to severe mental retardation to read a series of monosyllabic words was investigated. No one experimental condition was superior to the others, and no skill acquisition differences were found in…

Reports on reading research in Great Britain published in 1988. Includes sections on word recognition, dyslexia, blind and deaf readers, writing, language and literacy, cohesion and comprehension, parents, and teaching methods. Concludes that most funding reinforces a narrow paradigm of educational research and that aging reading tests are used to…

Research with 32 4-, 6-, 8-, and 10-year-old British children demonstrated that children at different reading levels relied on different types of cues in recognizing words. Older children used grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules in recognizing words and were much more flexible than were beginning readers in their response patterns. (SLD)

Investigation of associations between learning-disabled children's ability to repeat pseudowords and their performances on other measures of phonological processing and academic achievement found that repetition ability was more closely related to reading and spelling skills than to mathematics achievement, while measures of phonological skills…

Reviews reading research in Great Britain in 1987, focusing on: parental involvement; preschool literacy; oral reading; remedial reading; writing, spelling, and handwriting; word recognition; comprehension; reading and thinking; and reading schemes. Suggests that future literacy research should reflect alternative means of investigation and a…

Results of studies of 238 Australian children of differing socioeconomic status in preschool and at the end of first grade are consistent with the view that socioeconomic status differences in word-level reading achievement are mediated partly through preexisting differences in phonological sensitivity. (SLD)

This article describes a theoretical model of reading disability that integrates research findings in cognitive psychology, reading, and education. The model identifies four patterns of reading disability: (1) nonalphabetic readers, (2) compensatory readers, (3) nonautomatic readers, and (4) readers delayed in the acquisition of word recognition…

Four adolescents with moderate mental disabilities were taught by peers to read key words from labels of cooking products using constant time delay. Students mastered the reading of target key words in a relatively short amount of time with minimal errors, acquired some incidental learning of cooking definitions, and were able to generalize the…

An experiment exploring Zimbabwean bilingual readers' use of background knowledge in reading comprehension is reported. In contrast to previous results, the bilingual participants of these experiments do use context to improve comprehension on some passages. (15 references) (Author/LB)

Examined sex differences in eighth and tenth graders' and college students' use of elaboration in paired associate learning. Findings indicate that, as males and females became more proficient strategy users, sex differences diminished under more favorable task conditions that encouraged strategy use but remained constant under less favorable…