Examines whether children taught in literacy program classrooms make greater progress in reading during their first two years of formal schooling than children in classrooms not involved in the literacy program. Finds that children in the literacy program classrooms made more reading progress in both the Reception year and Year 1. (CMK)

This interview with Dr. Michael Pressley discusses the hurdles that struggling readers confront when comprehending text, teaching methods that can be used for improving reading comprehension, the role of special educators and reading specialists in the education of struggling readers, and the need for teachers to teach reading comprehension…

Nine elementary students with mild to moderate mental retardation were taught to use a balanced, multimethod, multilevel language arts framework that blended phonics and basal instruction with holistic and contextualized approaches. Children made gains in word identification and reading comprehension strategies, metalinguistics, written language,…

Recently, investigators have begun to pay increasing attention to the role of teachers' domain-specific knowledge in the area of reading, and its implications for both classroom practice and student learning. The aims of the present study were to assess kindergarten to third grade teachers' actual and perceived reading related subject matter…

Fifteen regular grade 2 teachers used a set of 150 written lessons that were designed to develop, over the course of a school year, low and normally achieving students' ability to decode by analogy (i.e., to read unknown words using known words). The lessons provided (1) a planned sequence for teaching phonic elements including common spelling…

The Discrepancy Hypothesis posits that children early in the acquisition process read visually (holistically) and spell phonologically. This claim was examined and rejected. We investigated reading and spelling in Grade 1 and Grade 2 children using controlled non-word and word materials with a variety of orthographic patterns. While reading and…

In recent years, much has been written about effective beginning reading instruction. Most professionals agree that early literacy instruction should include (a) phonemic awareness activities; (b) instruction in letter-sound relationships; (c) instruction in sounding out words and recognizing simple high frequency words at sight, (d) reading…

Purpose: The major goal of this study was to specify the developmental trajectories for phonics and early text comprehension skills of children from kindergarten through third grade. Method: Data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (N = 12,261) were used in this study. The participants were divided into 3 school readiness groups based on…

Noting that parent involvement could be the single most important factor in children's success in school, this book helps parents act as tutors in reading and writing for their kindergarten children. It offers both general guidelines and specific strategies and activities to use for accomplishing specific objectives, such as improving decoding…

Reading achievement and instruction receive wide attention in the popular press. Ways in which principals can increase reading levels in their schools are offered here. The text emphasizes the fact that principals have the power to create a "school of readers"; it offers current research in reading instruction and shares eight components needed to…

Extending the editors' system for word study, this book presents essays by scholars and practitioners who explore letter and word learning in a variety of reading, writing, and language contexts in the primary classroom, with articles that range from detailed observations of individual readers and writers to full-scale analyses of classroom…

This manual, intended for use by tutors working with adults learning to read, offers a consolidated resource of specific instructional techniques and provides additional suggestions not covered in basic tutoring workshops. The manual summarizes a variety of approaches commonly used to instruct adults and provides background for three modes of…

A practicum was designed to intervene and assist borderline elementary school RSP (Resource Specialist Program) students in special education classes and/or through extra assistance within the regular classroom. Borderline RSP students who had been referred to the Student Study Team (SST) for below-grade-level scores and classroom functioning in…

Various lines of research demonstrate that children do not need intensive phonics instruction to develop the functional command of letter/sound patterns that they need as readers. The fact that children normally learn highly complex processes and systems by merely interacting with the external world is perhaps the most important reason why…

To determine the number and types of spelling errors made by college students, a study examined students' spelling errors on four complex word patterns which occur in related words. Fifty students attending a four-year engineering institute were selected and classified as group A (good readers/good spellers) or group B (poor readers/poor spellers)…