Research Findings: The present study evaluated the effects of a Family Literacy program on the early English reading development of speakers of English as a first language (EL1s) and English language learners (ELLs). The study included a linguistically and culturally diverse sample of 132 kindergarten children and their parents. Families in the…

In this study, 2.5-, 3-, and 4-year-olds (N=108) participated in a novel noun generalization task in which background context was manipulated. During the learning phase of each trial, children were presented with exemplars in one or multiple background contexts. At the test, children were asked to generalize to a novel exemplar in either the same…

Children from low-income families are at risk of learning outcome difficulties, particularly in literacy. Various studies link poor literacy results with performance later in primary and secondary school, and suggest that poverty, literacy skills and weak instructional methods combine to drastically limit the educational opportunities for many…

This paper reports research on the initial teacher training and continuing professional development of teachers in six African countries (Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda). The focus of the research was on the teaching of early reading and mathematics. The curriculum of both these areas was analysed in terms of (i) implementation…

Examined in this study was instruction in two reading intervention programs, Reading Recovery and Reading Mastery, in the context of a statewide early reading initiative's first year of implementation. Through observations of 15 teachers, investigated in this study was the instructional focus of the intervention lessons and the extent to which…

This first Japanese twin study of early literacy development investigated the extent to which genetic and environmental factors influence individual differences in prereading skills in 238 pairs of twins at 42 months of age. Twin pairs were individually tested on measures of phonological awareness, "kana" letter name/sound knowledge,…

This research investigated the concurrent association between early reading skills and phonological awareness (PA), print knowledge, language, cognitive, and demographic variables in 101 five-Year-Old Children with prelingual hearing losses ranging from mild to profound who communicated primarily via spoken language. All participants were fitted…

Reading words and developing larger vocabularies are critical parts of reading proficiency, but these checkpoints do not have significance until young students grasp the meaning behind words. While teachers and the school culture can improve early reading proficiency, legislatures and state education agencies can support such efforts by…

An embodied approach to reading comprehension suggests that emerging readers must learn to map words and phrases onto their remembered experiences, but this is made difficult by the necessity of focusing attention on decoding. Having children manipulate toys to correspond to what they are reading overcomes this problem, but introduces its own…

Early Reading First (ERF) was created to address problems related to language and development among economically disadvantaged and language-minority preschool children through quality classroom processes, professional development, and instruction. More than any previous initiative, ERF specifies what early literacy instruction should look like in…

In this review the authors considered all the documents pertaining to the teaching of reading in Botswana primary schools from independence to the present. The purpose was to get the big picture with regard to the status of reading education. The results are reported in four categories: (1) Reading in the Classroom; (2) Reading and Policy; (3)…

The purpose of this study was to examine the concurrent validity of the assessment for an early language and literacy project. The goal of the project was to promote a successful transition to kindergarten for preschoolers who were at risk for reading difficulties by equipping them with the necessary language and literacy skills needed for early…

This study examined the predictive validity of combinations of progress-monitoring measures: (a) curriculum-embedded phonemic awareness and alphabetic/decoding measures, and (b) Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS; Good & Kaminski, 2002) nonsense word fluency and phoneme segmentation fluency on reading outcomes of…

This study compared the effects of Tier 2 reading interventions that operated in response-to-intervention contexts. Kindergarten children (N = 90) who were identified as at risk for reading difficulties were stratified by school and randomly assigned to receive (a) Early Reading Intervention (ERI; Pearson/Scott Foresman, 2004) modified in response…

Researchers have found that teacher preparation programs are not universally preparing teacher candidates in concepts associated with the alphabetic principle. Yet, the majority of students with reading disabilities or who struggle with beginning reading have difficulty with phonology and concepts associated with the alphabetic principle. The…