Background/Context: Literacy stands as a pivotal life skill, especially as it strengthens education across subjects. The elementary years are crucial for mastering literacy, yet national assessments show a decline in elementary students' reading proficiency, with only 33% of American fourth graders reading at grade level (National Center for…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine if group differences exist in spelling accuracy or spelling errors between kindergarten children with hearing loss and children with normal hearing loss. Method: Participants included 23 kindergarten children with hearing loss and 21 children with normal hearing. All children used spoken English…

This research examines the effects of a computer reading program as a supplement to classroom instruction for Kindergarten students across Study 1 and Study 2 (N = 55 and 88, respectively). Students attended schools in suburban settings and all students received their typical balanced literacy programming. Students in the treatment condition used…

Purpose: This study investigated the longitudinal, cross-linguistic developmental relationships of phonological awareness (PA), letter identification (letter ID), and morphological awareness (MA) in 71 heritage Spanish-English dual language learners (DLLs) in kindergarten and second grade. Method: Multiple linear regression was used to test if…

This study examines the efficacy, cost, and implementation of an integrated science and literacy curriculum for kindergarten. The study was conducted in a large urban district and included 1,589 students in 71 classrooms in 21 schools. The research includes a multi-site cluster-randomized controlled trial and mixed-methods cost and implementation…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the kindergarten, first-, and second-grade predictors of reading comprehension in bilingual children. Specifically, we evaluated the role that Spanish and English skills play in predicting English reading comprehension in third grade. Method: As part of a longitudinal study, 248 bilingual children…

The overlapping waves model put forth by Robert Siegler emphasizes variability, adaptive choice, and gradual change in children's problem solving. These concepts were applied to emergent reading of an alphabet book with pages of three difficulty levels. Ninety-one kindergartners completed tests of emergent literacy. Twice, about 12 weeks apart,…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd-grade predictors of reading comprehension in bilingual children. Specifically, we evaluated the role that Spanish and English skills play in predicting English reading comprehension in 3rd grade. Method: As part of a longitudinal study, 248 bilingual children were…

Helping young children become proficient readers is a critical goal. Research tells us that students who experience difficulty reading in the early years of school often struggle to catch up (Stanley, Petscher, & Catts, 2018; Ozernov, Palchik et al., 2016; Cunningham & Stanovich, 1997; Francis, Shaywitz, Stuebing, Shaywitz, & Fletcher,…

Although several measures exist for frequently monitoring early reading progress, little research has specifically investigated their technical properties when administered on a frequent basis with kindergarten students. In this study, kindergarten students (N = 137) of whom the majority was receiving supplemental intervention for reading skills…

Although several measures are available for monitoring kindergarten reading progress, little research has directly compared them to determine which are superior in predicting year-end reading skills relative to other measures, and how validity may change across the school year as reading skills develop. A sample of 426 kindergarten students who…

The purpose of the study was to assess early literacy skills and examine the presence and stability of challenging behaviors across the critical threshold of the kindergarten school year. Students' (n = 337) literacy performance (letter sound fluency, word attack, and phonological awareness) and challenging behaviors (teacher ratings of…

This study aimed to describe the narrative retell performance of dual language learners (DLLs) in the fall and spring of the school year and examine predictive relationships. Participants included 74 DLLs in kindergarten and first grade from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Microstructural measures included number of different words (NDW), words per…

Within a developmental framework, this study compared the predictive validity of three DIBELS tasks (phoneme segmentation fluency [PSF], nonsense word fluency [NWF], and oral reading fluency [ORF]) with that of three alternative tasks drawn from the field of reading (phonemic spelling [phSPEL], word recognition-timed [WR-t], and graded passage…

This study examined benefits of connecting meaning, speech, and print in vocabulary learning for kindergarten English learners. Students screened eligible with limited English proficiency were randomly assigned to two instruction conditions. Both groups received direct instruction in high frequency root words. One condition featured added…