The purpose of this study was to determine whether music instruction was related to significant gains in the development of young children's phonemic awareness, particularly in their phoneme-segmentation fluency. Beginning in January 2004 and continuing through the end of April 2004, each of four intact classrooms of kindergarten children (n =…

Bernhardt (2003) claims that half of the variance in second language (L2) reading is accounted for by first language literacy (20%) and second language knowledge (30%), and that one of the central goals of current L2 reading research should be to investigate the 50% of variance that remains unexplained. Part of this variance takes consists of…

Administrators in the U.S. education system need to be more than good managers, they need to understand high-quality reading instruction, so they can serve their teachers and help their school meet Reading First requirements. Although written with the administrator in mind, this collection also can be used by teachers, teacher educators, staff…

A study investigated the efficacy of using the Language Experience Approach (LEA) with a 15-year-old special education fifth-grade rural black student who did not seem to benefit from traditional skills training procedures. The subject was reading below the first grade level and was a sole survivor of two parallel single-subject design studies.…

This professional development guide is designed for educators who work with secondary students who are struggling in reading and writing and who need intensive, individualized instruction to improve their skills. Examples of students for whom this guide is intended include: students with disabilities, English language learners, and low-achieving…

Identifying the best way to help students who struggle with reading--whether they have learning disabilities, are English language learners, or just need extra support--is a challenge for any teacher. Schools can make that task easier with this indispensable resource, a complete guide to addressing each student's specific instructional needs and…

Data are presented from a number of different sites in which oral reading fluency was measured using the procedures commonly ascribed to curriculum-based measurement (CBM). This measurement system focuses on automaticity in reading and therefore students are directed to read aloud from grade level passages for one minute, with words read correctly…

Effects of reading instruction maximizing students' cognitive engagement on Grade 1 to 5 reading achievement were examined over a school year for students in 9 high-poverty schools. Hierarchical linear modeling showed that several teaching variables explained substantial variation in reading achievement growth. The most consistent finding was that…

By measuring behavioural performance and event-related potentials (ERPs) this study investigated the extent to which Chinese school children's reading development is influenced by their skills in auditory, speech, and temporal processing. In Experiment 1, 102 normal school children's performance in pure tone temporal order judgment, tone frequency…

In recent years a growing body of evidence has implicated deficits in the automaticity of fundamental facts such as word and number recognition in a range of disorders: including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, apraxia and autism. Variously described as habits, fluency, chunking and over learning, automatic processes are best…

This investigation compared the acceptability of three methods for assessing reading (i.e., norm-referenced assessment, curriculum-based assessment, brief experimental analysis), and explored how a new assessment methodology can gain acceptance as a useful and appropriate approach. Given that brief experimental analysis is a relatively new…

Oral reading fluency is a good predictor of performance on state reading assessments. The present study addressed the issue of bias by examining whether oral reading fluency scores differentially predict performance on a state reading assessment and the Metropolitan Achievement Tests, 7th Edition (MAT/7) across economic and racial groups.…

Children from non-English-speaking homes are doubly disadvantaged when learning English in school. They enter school with less prior knowledge of English sounds, word meanings, and sentence structure, and they get little or no reinforcement of their learning outside of the classroom. This article compares the classroom standard practice of…

Reading is a complex activity that involves both perception and thought. Reading consists of two related processes, word recognition and comprehension. Learning to read is an important educational goal. Research has shown that there is a great deal of transfer from learning to read in one language to learning to read in a second language. This…

Based on the 1998 Arkansas State Language Arts Framework, this sample curriculum model for kindergarten language arts is divided into sections focusing on writing; listening, speaking, and viewing; and reading. Each section lists standards; benchmarks; assessments; and strategies/activities. The reading section itself is divided into print…