Reading comprehension is a fundamental and indispensable skill for academic achievement and daily functioning. Sadly, a significant number of children and youth, particularly those diagnosed with learning disabilities (LD), encounter difficulties in acquiring this vital capability. Thankfully, several well-established approaches exist to offer…

Current policy, media and curriculum initiatives across western nations are drawing literacy and literacy pedagogy toward enticingly simplistic understandings of literacy as commodity. Increasingly they focus on "fixing" perceived literacy problems by assuming the primacy of early years literacy and "top-up" intervention…

Presents examples of the social causation of reading handicaps from a cross-cultural study of 14 countries called the Comparative Reading project. The study compared ways children were taught to read. (BF/JH)

Background: We evaluate the effectiveness of three theoretically motivated programmes for the teaching of reading to four-year-old children. Method: Four hundred and ten children, of pre-kindergarten age, in 20 UK Reception-year classrooms were divided into four matched groups and randomly assigned to one of three experimental teaching conditions,…

BRITISH EXPERIMENTAL USAGE OF INITIAL TEACHING ALPHABET (ITA) MATERIALS AND PROCEDURES FOR INSTRUCTION OF READING DISABILITY CASES WAS STUDIED TO DETERMINE IF ITA METHODS AND MATERIALS COULD BE SIMILARLY USED IN A SAN JOSE READING CLINIC. THE INVESTIGATOR MADE OBSERVATIONS IN ENGLAND OF QUALITY, FORMAT, CONCEPTS, AND USE OF LANGUAGE IN THE ITA…

Children are faced with an increased potential for academic failure due to less stable family lives and career-oriented parents. Cross-cultural reading instruction practices and programs can provide insights that could prevent such failure for children at-risk. One such program is the reading maintenance program used in Denmark, wherein groups of…