Decades of research on early care and education have shown that four-year-old children who enroll in prekindergarten (pre-K) programs start kindergarten scoring higher on assessments of academic skills than those who do not. A handful of long-term follow-up studies of pre-K have also found that these programs can have lasting beneficial impacts on…

"Ladders to Literacy" is a supplemental early literacy curriculum composed of 60 activities designed to develop children's print/book awareness, metalinguistic awareness, and oral language skills. The "Ladders to Literacy" activities can be implemented in a variety of early childhood settings and adapted for children with…

"Let's Begin with the Letter People"[R] is an early childhood literacy curriculum that uses 26 thematic units--each of which covers a letter of the alphabet--to develop children's language and early literacy skills. A major focus of the program is phonological awareness, including rhyming, word play, alliteration, and segmentation.…

This study examined the reading interest and emergent literacy skills of 31 children with Down syndrome (DS) ages 7 to 13. Parents completed questionnaires on their children's interest in reading, home literacy environments, and parental beliefs about reading. Children were then assessed on their cognitive and emergent literacy skills.…

"Doors to Discovery"]TM] is a preschool literacy curriculum that uses eight thematic units of activities to help children build fundamental early literacy skills in oral language, phonological awareness, concepts of print, alphabet knowledge, writing, and comprehension. The eight thematic units cover topics such as nature, friendship,…

The study examined the impact of the "Project STAR" ("Sit Together and Read") reading program on the literacy skills of preschool students. Researchers randomly assigned 85 preschool classrooms in Ohio to one of three study groups at the start of the 2004-05 or 2005-06 school years: (1) A high-dose intervention group, in which…

This article explores aspects of early language and literacy that may predict later literacy development. It explores a range of assessment procedures used for oral language, vocabulary, sentence structure and phonology and early reading and writing. The article then describes a small-scale study which highlights the disconnections between the…

"Read Well"[R] is a reading curriculum for kindergarten and first-grade students whose goal is to increase students' literacy abilities. The program provides instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, comprehension, and fluency. The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) reviewed five studies on "Read Well"[R] for English…

"Ladders to Literacy" is a supplemental early literacy curriculum composed of more than 70 activities designed to develop children's print/book awareness, metalinguistic awareness, and oral language skills. The curriculum, published in the book "Ladders to Literacy: A Preschool Activity Book, Second Edition," can be used in a…

In 2011-2012, AISD provided a tuition-supported pre-K program to 4-year-old students who were not eligible to enroll in the state-mandated program. Overall, pre-K students in the tuition-supported program demonstrated meaningful growth on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. [Funding for this report was provided by Title I funds. For…

This study evaluated the impact of a comprehensive reading program enhanced with sign language on the literacy and language skills of three elementary school students with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Students received individual and small group comprehensive reading instruction for approximately 55 minutes per session. Reading…

"Literacy Express" is a preschool curriculum designed for three-to five-year-old children. It is structured around units on oral language, emergent literacy, basic math, science, general knowledge, and socioemotional development. It can be used in half-or full-day programs with typically developing children and children with special…

"Curiosity Corner" is an early childhood curriculum emphasizing children's language and literacy skills. It comprises two sets of 38 weekly thematic units, one for three-year-olds and one for four-year-olds. Program staff conduct daily lessons using sequential daily activities. The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) reviewed three studies of…

This brief report focusing on children' s kindergarten readiness i s the third in a series of reports describing data from the 2009 cohort of the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES 2009). Previous FACES 2009 reports described the characteristics of children and their families and programs as they entered Head Start in fall 2009…

Using a cluster randomization design, schools were randomly assigned to implement Success for All, a comprehensive reading reform model, or control methods. This article reports final literacy outcomes for a 3-year longitudinal sample of children who participated in the treatment or control condition from kindergarten through second grade and a…