The Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR) Reading Assessment (FRA) consists of computer-adaptive reading comprehension and oral language screening tasks that provide measures to track growth over time, as well as a Probability of Literacy Success (PLS) linked to grade-level performance (i.e., the 50th percentile) on the reading comprehension…

Presenting activities, facts, and illustrations, this book takes learning the alphabet to a new level. After an introduction and a brief cartoon look at the history of the alphabet, the book presents 26 four-page mini-chapters (1 for each letter) that include a brief visual history of the letter; trivia tidbits; project ideas; a list of people,…

The current spelling of words in English is so lacking in consistency that the time is ripe for the adoption of an alphabet that embodies some semblance of phonetics. This paper proposes a new alphabet for English that uses the English (Roman) letters as elements so that current type and typewriters can still be used. Furthermore, allowance is…

Reexamines what learning the alphabet means from the child's perspective. Draws from several case studies and other naturalistic examinations of young children as they learn to read and write to describe what young children learn about the alphabet. (MG)

This nontechnical guide for parents and teachers examines learning to read from infants' babbling to the fluent reading of children reading independently for pleasure. Chapter 1, "Baby Speaks," describes language development in infancy. Chapter 2, "Our Alphabet: Language by Ear and by Eye," presents the alphabetic system and…

The road to becoming a reader begins the day a child is born and continues through the end of third grade. At that point, a child must read with ease and understanding to take advantage of the learning opportunities in fourth grade and beyond--in school and in life. Learning to read and write starts at home, long before children go to school. Very…

Letter and syllable dice devised for a project in rural Ecuador provide inexpensive, easily reproducible learning materials for practice in basic literary skills. Eleven wooden cubes with six letters on each cube are cast onto a surface and the player constructs words from the letters on the top side of the dice. After a word is formed and…