There is considerable research regarding measures of early reading but much less in early writing. Nevertheless, writing is a critical skill for success in school and early difficulties in writing are likely to persist without intervention. A necessary step toward identifying those students who need additional support is the use of screening…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine how well a kindergarten dynamic assessment of decoding predicts future reading difficulty at 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade and to determine whether the dynamic assessment improves the predictive validity of traditional static kindergarten reading measures. Method: With a small variation in sample…

This study evaluated the extent to which existing measures met standards for a continuous suite of general outcome measures (GOMs) assessing children's early literacy from preschool through early elementary school. The study assessed 316 children from age 3 years (2 years prekindergarten) through Grade 2, with 8 to 10 measures of language,…

Grounded in a strong evidence base, this indispensable text and practitioner guide has given thousands of teachers tools to support the literacy growth of beginning and struggling readers in grades K-2. The interactive strategies approach (ISA) is organized around core instructional goals related to enhancing word learning and comprehension of…

There is a need for more comprehensive assessments of young children's emerging print knowledge. Traditional letter and numeral identification assessments score children's responses as either correct or incorrect and this approach can underestimate what children know. The present study tested an assessment scale that scored three- and…

When young children struggle with phonological awareness and alphabet knowledge, how can you intervene early and prevent later reading difficulties? Get kids on the "PAth to Literacy" with this highly effective Tier 2 intervention. Developed for children ages 4 to 6 who need help with key early literacy skills, this supplemental…

Letter name knowledge (LNK) is a key predictor of later reading ability and has been emphasized strongly in recent educational policy. Studies of LNK have implicitly treated it as a unidimensional construct with all letters equally relevant to its measurement. However, some empirical research suggests that contextual factors can affect the…

Two hypotheses were tested: Similarity between first language (L1) and second language (L2) orthographic processing facilitates L2-decoding efficiency; and L2-decoding efficiency contributes to word-meaning inference to different degrees among L2 learners with diverse L1 orthographic backgrounds. The participants were college-level English as a…

The reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act has initiated changes that are affecting early literacy assessment, and it has prompted the growing use of measures that incorporate phonological and alphabetic fluency. However, the question of how phonological and alphabetic fluency can inhibit (or promote) reading…

Included here are two appendixes to "Adult Education Literacy Instruction: A Review of the Research." Appendix A, "Adult Studies," contains: (1) Assessment Profiles; (2) Alphabetics; (3) Fluency; (4) Vocabulary; and (5) Comprehension. Appendix B, "Adolescent Studies," contains: (1) Alphabetics; (2) Fluency; (3) Vocabulary; and (4) Comprehension.…

The setting of this study took place in an inner city. The purpose was to determine the effectiveness of a neurologically integrated approach in teaching 43 at-risk pre-first graders their letter sounds and formations during 45-50 hours of summer school. There were four sequential phases to teaching this alphabetic approach: imagery, auditory,…

In 3 experiments the authors examined changes in successive exemplar generation percentages within categories defined semantically (e.g., fruit-P, fruit-A, fruit-M) and by 1st letter (e.g., insect-C, sport-C, car-C), with a mixed control condition (e.g., fruit-P, insect-C, disease-M). Retrieval success declined across 12 successive items in both…

Letters and words are better identified when there are fewer available choices. How do readers use choice-set restrictions? By analyzing new experimental data and previously reported data, the author shows that Bayes theorem-based models overestimate readers' use of choice-set restrictions. This result is discordant with choice-similarity models…

This issue of "Focus On" provides an overview of several key early literacy components: phonemic awareness, alphabet knowledge, concepts of print, oral language development, writing, family literacy, and reading aloud. Suggestions for assessing early literacy development are provided, and examples of implementation of effective early literacy…

Hannah is a Pacific island grade 1 teacher in a local village school. She teaches in her native Pacific language and has established a 90-minute daily literacy block in which she focuses on literacy-related activities. As Hannah begins to prepare for the year and map out her ideas, she is aware of the need to gather basic information on each of…