This report is part of a series of four guidance reports that the EEF has produced on the theme of language and literacy. It focuses on pupils between the ages of 5 and 7 in Key Stage 1. However, it may also be applicable to older pupils who have fallen behind their peers, or younger pupils who are making rapid progress. Separate reports cover…

Recent efforts to motivate parents' involvement in their child's literacy development involve informing parents about how to incorporate literacy development into daily routines. Teacher leadership and communication are critical--the more teachers encourage and assist parents and caregivers in supporting their child's literacy development, the…

The goal of this practice guide is to offer educators specific, evidence-based recommendations for teaching foundational reading skills to students in kindergarten through 3rd grade. This guide is a companion to the existing practice guide, "Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade", and as a set, these guides…

Comprehension tests are often used interchangeably, suggesting an implicit assumption that they are all measuring the same thing. We examine the validity of this assumption by comparing some of the most popular reading comprehension measures used in research and clinical practice in the United States: the Gray Oral Reading Test (GORT), the two…

Presents five experiments that examine the ability of first graders, fourth graders, and adults to make causal inferences that explain how an unexpected and inconsistent "outcome" follows from an initial premise in a story. Results indicate that referential and causal coherence are empirically separable and should be distinguished…

This study tested the role of visual processing speed and IQ in reading with 124 children either with or without reading disability. Results indicated that processing speed explains a significant amount of variance in reading comprehension, as does IQ. Path analyses indicated that the effect of IQ on reading is partially mediated by decoding in…

Compared to controls, adults (n=102) who reported a history of difficulties in learning to read were disabled in phonological coding, but less disabled in reading comprehension. Adults with poor phonological coding skills had basic deficits in phonological representations of spoken words, even when semantic word knowledge, phonemic awareness,…

This study used computer word games to train 35 dyslexic readers (mean age 13 years) in automaticity (speed and accuracy) of word recognition. After training, reaction time on the word vocalization and sentence comprehension tasks improved significantly for both trained and untrained stimuli. Results support the automaticity hypothesis. (DB)

Investigates relationships between syntactic awareness and reading proficiency. Fourth- and fifth-grade children of varying decoding ability differed in syntactic awareness according to their ability to correct grammatically deviant sentences in an oral language task. Significant correlations were observed between task results and measures of…

This paper argues that the ability to rapidly compare phonemes is a primary sensory-cognitive function underlying self-correction in word recognition and spelling and thus, indirectly, reading comprehension. Such phonological defects can be addressed both preventively and remedially using procedures that are fundamentally different from typical…

Findings suggest that (1) dyslexia is more prevalent in the United States than in Italy, (2) reading disabilities are strongly associated with disorders of verbal processing in both countries (although some American dyslexics also show visual-motor deficits), and (3) there is a greater dissociation between reading comprehension and decoding in…

Listening and reading comprehension tests were administered to 180 children in grades 3-8. A regression equation was derived and applied to listening comprehension scores of seven children with reading difficulties. The procedure was determined to be useful in predicting reading comprehension and attributing it to poor decoding, poor…

This study of the effectiveness of the Project Success Summer Program found that the eight-week program improved dyslexic adults' (n=63) reading and spelling scores in five areas. Results indicated that training in phonological skills improved decoding skills and that passage reading rates and individual word reading rates best predicted…

Studies the development of word-retrieval speed and its relationship to reading in 72 average and 11 severely impaired readers in kindergarten through the second grade. (HOD)

Contends that, although early precursors to reading and the first phases of reading acquisition have been extensively studied, the acquisition of different components of the reading process have not been considered. Reviews research from the past 15 years to examine the relationship between decoding and comprehension skills. (CFR)