This was a qualitative case study that compared data across six district-level literacy coaches' epistemological and ontological beliefs about how to teach reading. All six coaches were working as a cohort of literacy coaches on the development and implementation of a secondary reading intervention program for seventh-grade struggling readers.…

William S. Gray, first president of the International Reading Association, is the focus of this booklet. Sections are devoted to "The Person," which includes Gray's family background, early schooling and teaching jobs, and his further education at Illinois State University, the University of Chicago, and Teachers College (Columbia…

Considers the prospects and need for a psychologically plausible connectionist model of the development of word recognition skills. Emphasizes the importance of phonological skills as precursors and facilitators of learning to read. Argues that it may be possible to develop a connectionist model which will be more consistent with evidence from…

Analyzes and compares the types and frequencies of background knowledge children use during independent emergent readings, and those children and teachers use in group-shared reading experiences that precede emergent readings. Uses this information to provide evidence for a model of reading as an activity constrained by contextual factors such as…

Reviews the literature on decodable text, instructional material containing words with phonically regular relationships that the reader has been taught. Synthesizes findings into a theoretical model that suggests a specific developmental juncture in which decodable text may be useful. Concludes that additional analyses of words in text are not…

Investigates the relationship of rapid serial naming (RSN) and other variables thought to contribute to beginning word reading (phonological awareness, orthographic knowledge, memory span, processing speed, and articulation). Explores a preliminary/exploratory model of word reading. Indicates that no variable in the model could fully…

Sixty skilled and 60 less-skilled readers were tested for oral reading skills at the end of one, two, and three years of reading instruction, to study the acquisition of reading fluency. A 3 x 2 x 3 ANOVA was used to analyze the influence of years of practice and instruction, reading skill, and levels of word accuracy on oral reading fluency.…

This study investigated children's profiles on four constructs fundamental to areas of children's early literacy acquisition: auditory processing, crystallized ability, processing speed, and short-term memory. These areas were measured using six tests: Memory for Sentences, Visual Matching, Incomplete Words, Sound Blending, Oral Vocabulary, and…

A study examined the developmental shifts in the importance of linguistic components of words to single word decoding. Subjects, 1200 children ages 6-7, 8-9, and 10-12.5 years who were the normative sample of the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (K-ABC), were tested using a word recognition test, the Reading Decoding Subtest of the K-ABC.…

This paper develops a model for generating sets of replicable items for testing a range of reading skills in the primary grades. The procedure is particularly concerned with tests to identify a child's profile in reading achievement and to inform a teacher, principal, or district of the actual level of achievement in reading. Although the model is…

Examines how the child approaches reading and spelling in the light of the developmental sequence of phonological awareness skills, by looking at the growth of these skills from the initial formation of each skill through the early stages of their development. (RS)

Applies the Canonical Story Grammar Model to a major beginning reader computer series. Analyzes the teaching manual and interviews the series' representative. Finds that the stories did not contain adequate story grammar. Notes weaknesses in the manual analysis and interviews. (RS)

Dissatisfied with traditional approaches to beginning reading practices dominated by phonics, basal reading series, and workbooks, and more importantly, influenced by research and knowledge about how children learn to read, teachers/educators launched a grass-roots whole language movement in the early 1980s. However, the term "whole…

Syntheses of reading research conducted by the National Research Council (1998) and more recently by the Congressionally-Commissioned National Reading Panel (2000) provide ample evidence of the skills, experience, and knowledge children need to become successful readers in an alphabetic writing system. This research makes clear that children must…

An examination and evaluation of the papers presented at the Pittsburgh conference on the theory and practice of beginning reading instruction shows that there is little interaction between basic research in reading and applied work on reading instruction. Classroom instruction relies more on intuition and experience than on laboratory research,…