Socioeconomic gradients and growth-mixture model trajectories of word-reading achievement were examined from kindergarten to Grade 5 in all the children who entered kindergarten within a school district and started receiving literacy-intensive instruction from that point on. In kindergarten, the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and…

Reading disability and illiteracy are among the most pressing educational issues facing the United States today. At least 40 percent of America's fourth-graders are unable to read at grade level and a similar proportion of adults read at the lowest two levels of prose literacy. Here, the authors present an unflinching examination of the science…

Reading Recovery is a short-term intervention program for first-graders who are at risk of failure in reading and writing. More than 1.5 million children have been served in the United States since 1984, and pre- and post-test Observation Survey scores have been collected across the nation for the past 20 years. Yet there is a need to determine…

The paper outlines a framework for the development of reading that shows it is heavily dependent upon spoken language processes. Within this view, reading difficulties can follow from difficulties with speech processing (decoding problems) or from broader language processing impairments (comprehension problems). The paper describes the literacy…

We compared a reading intervention that consisted of explicit, self-regulatory strategy instruction to a strategy intervention that was less explicit to determine the impact on the reading-specific self-efficacy, attributions, and affect of students with reading disabilities (RD). Participants included 20 students with RD who were entering grades…

Of all human maladies which account for learning disabilities among young and old alike, few remain as poorly understood and inconclusively defined as dyslexia. The general public perceives dyslexia to be a reading problem; some psychologists believe that dyslexia can stem from a low socio-economic status; educators see the term as involving…

THE CONSTRUCTION OF AN APPROACH FOR SYSTEMATICALLY DEVELOPING AND INTERRELATING ORAL LANGUAGE AND READING BEHAVIORS WAS BASED ON A RESEARCH STUDY OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT AND READING WHOLLY CONCERNED WITH THE EDUCATIONALLY DISADVANTAGED, SPANISH-SPEAKING CHILD IN TEXAS. THE APPROACH WAS DEVELOPED FROM A STUDY OF A PARTICULAR GROUP OF CHILDREN…

Students who speak in a jargon related to, but different from, Standard American English and students who know a single or limited word meaning but are unable to translate that word into a new subject area content both need reading instruction as though Standard American English were their second language. All content area teachers must teach…

Senior scientists representing a variety of research-oriented disciplines examine the reading process. Among the topics discussed are visual perception, the processing of written information, models for reading and speech, the relationship of spelling to sound, and areas of needed research. Also discussed are the influences of grammatical…

The causes of reading problems were studied in order to plan and implement reading programs for their prevention and correction. Some of the environmental causes related to socioeconomic disadvantagement which were discussed are distracting family problems, frequent moving, and few educational-related activities in the home. The family life is…

Every year the purchase of unsuitable books for disadvantaged children wastes millions of dollars. The use of these unsuitable books results in extensive reading failure. In order to overcome this waste of money and human resources, book committees need to employ standards and methods of evaluation to identify books appropriate for disadvantaged…

The disagreement on terminology used to describe reading difficulties and to classify reading underachievers is illustrated. Some of the research findings on physical, intellectual, emotional, and educational factors which cause reading difficulty are described, with emphasis on replying to questions asked by parents and on clarifying some…

These conference proceedings report the discussions of classroom teachers and university professors relating to the problems of teaching disadvantaged students. Topics treated were the inadequacies of teacher training, need for self-analysis during training, teaching of reading, grouping students for instruction, and the relation of the schools to…

The Initial Teaching Alphabet (i.t.a.), devised by Sir James Pitman as a simplified alphabet for beginning readers, consists of 44 characters plus a set of rules for standard spellings of English words using these characters. The characters and rules are designed to ensure easy transition from i.t.a. to traditional orthography (T.O.). In September…

The investigation reported in this volume attempts to clarify some issues relating to the existence, nature, and causes of specific dyslexia. Based on an extended study of 98 boys of at least average intelligence with severe reading and spelling problems, the report provides detailed data relating to their developmental and perinatal histories,…