By April 2020 public schools throughout the country closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On the brink of these turbulent times, we concluded a larger survey study describing first grade literacy instruction in February 2020. Having documented a year of pre-pandemic literacy instruction, we then reached out to the same participants to report on…

The objective for beginning writers is to learn how to generate alphabet-letters which are recognisable and easy to read. This study investigated the accuracy of Year 1 and 2 children's alphabet-letter-writing by evaluating their alphabet and orthographic knowledge, following evidence which identifies these skills as important for correctly…

We examined the associations between teachers' knowledge of language and literacy constructs, perceived ability to teach early literacy skills, instructional practice, and students' early reading outcomes. The results showed that teacher knowledge predicted quality of instruction, but neither quality of instruction nor teacher knowledge were…

Two experiments explored rates for introducing grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) and the types of correspondences taught for optimal alphabet and early literacy skills learning. In both studies, children entered with minimal alphabet knowledge and were randomly assigned within classrooms to one of two treatments delivered individually over…

We examine the effects of a read aloud replication intervention designed to improve the vocabulary, comprehension, and expository and narrative language outcomes of first grade students. Thirty-nine first-grade classrooms from 12 schools were randomly assigned to a treatment (n=19) or comparison condition (n=20). Teachers in the treatment…

An experiment examined orthographic facilitation of vocabulary learning, that is, whether showing students spellings of novel words during learning helps them remember the words when spellings are no longer present. The purpose was to determine whether having students decode the spellings of vocabulary words improves word learning over passive…

A random sample of 782 grades 1 through 3 Chinese language arts teachers in Taiwan were surveyed about how they taught writing and their beliefs about writing. The underlying dimensions of teachers' reported writing practices and beliefs were established through factor analyses. Thirty-seven percent of the teachers reported they taught writing…

In this longitudinal study, the word-level reading trajectories of 118 children were tracked alongside teachers' reported concerns and types of support provided through Grades 1, 2 and 3. Results show a significant decline in composite scores relative to age norms over time, with children achieving significantly lower in phonemic decoding than…

Previous studies revealed that young children learn novel word meanings by simply reading and listening to a printed book. In today's classroom, many children's e-books provide audio narration support so young readers can simply listen to the e-books. The focus of the present study is to examine the effect of e-book reading with audio narration…

As schools work to meet the ambitious Common Core State Standards in writing in the US, instructional approaches are likely to be examined (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010). However, there is little research on the current state of instruction. This study was designed to…

The impact of supplemental handwriting and spelling instruction on learning to write was examined in an experimental study with first grade students who were not acquiring these skills as rapidly as their classmates. Thirty students (16 boys, 14 girls) were randomly assigned to a handwriting and spelling instructional condition or a phonological…

One-hundred-fourteen kindergarten through third-grade teachers from seven different schools were surveyed using "The Survey of Preparedness and Knowledge of Language Structure Related to Teaching Reading to Struggling Students." The purpose was to compare their definitions and application knowledge of language structure, phonics, and…

The linguistic interdependence hypothesis (Cummins, 1979, 2000) states that children's second-language (L2) proficiency is, to some extent, a function of their first-language (L1) competence. Previous studies have examined this hypothesis with focus on a unidirectional relation from L1 to L2. In the present study, we examined…

This study explores the possibility of adapting specific progress-monitoring tools developed in the US for use in English-medium private schools in Bangalore. In the US, many teachers adopt progress-monitoring tools like the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) and Curriculum Based Measurement (easyCBM) to keep track of their…

Orthographic facilitation refers to the boost in vocabulary learning that is provided when spellings are shown during study periods, but not during testing. The current study examined orthographic facilitation in beginning readers and whether directing their attention to print enhances the effect. In an experiment, first graders (N = 45) were…