This study described the growth trajectories of 105 children (n = 55 boys) who had just started primary school in New Zealand (NZ). Children were assessed every fourth school week around 1.5 months after starting school, for five sessions on Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills first sound fluency (FSF), AIMSweb letter sound fluency…

On average, English language learners (ELLs) do not demonstrate the same academic achievement as their native English-speaking peers. The number of ELLs in U.S. schools has increased over the last several decades, as has the scholarly debate on how to best support ELLs in building foundational reading skills. The purpose of this study was to…

Teaching young children to read is one of the most important aspects of education. There is a vast body of research examining the neuroscientific processes at work in learning to read, the many components of literacy, and the best instructional methods to support literacy. The purpose of this study was to collect perceptual data from teachers…

In this longitudinal study, the word-level reading trajectories of 118 children were tracked alongside teachers' reported concerns and types of support provided through Grades 1, 2 and 3. Results show a significant decline in composite scores relative to age norms over time, with children achieving significantly lower in phonemic decoding than…

Correct pronunciation of English words is of vital significance for mutual intelligibility in the EFL context. Despite its prominence in L2 learning, teachers of English cannot decide whether and how to implement pronunciation practice into their teaching practices. For this reason, pronunciation training is widely neglected in language classes or…

The aim of the study was to explore the Finnish preservice and inservice teachers' knowledge of language constructs relevant for literacy acquisition. A total of 150 preservice teachers and 74 inservice teachers participated in the study by filling out a questionnaire that assessed self-perceived expertise in reading instruction, knowledge of…

This study reports the results of a cluster RCT evaluating the impact of Enhanced Core Reading Instruction on reading achievement of grade 1 at-risk readers. Forty-four elementary schools, blocked by district, were randomly assigned to condition. In both conditions, at-risk readers received 90 minutes of whole-group instruction (Tier 1) plus an…

"Teacher, I can read!" exclaimed Saree, a fourth-quarter second grader who was placed in the lowest of reading groups at a southwest side elementary school in Chicago. This was her proud announcement after three weeks of intensive intervention with Ms. Gomez, a student teacher in her final semester at Chicago State University. "Ms.…

It has been observed in Japanese children learning to read that there is an early and rapid shift from exclusive reading of hiragana as syllabograms to the dual-use convention in which some hiragana also represent phonemic elements. Such rapid initial learning appears contrary to the standard theories of reading acquisition that require…

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effects of the Direct Instruction REWARDS® program on reading complex words of two fifteen-year-old boys in a reading resource room. Both participants had difficulty in reading and were diagnosed as learning disabled. During baseline, both participants had difficulty in syllabication. The results showed…

While much research and many curricula have surfaced for teaching phonemic awareness to young learners, we worked with preschool and kindergarten teachers who were frustrated with some children they found hard to teach. Many children easily grasped the instruction provided to them, but others were not catching on even when using suggestions…

More than one third of American children cannot read at a basic level by fourth grade (Lee, Grigg, & Donahue, 2007) and those numbers are even higher for African American, Hispanic and poor White students (Boorman et al., 2007). These are alarming statistics given that the ability to read is the most basic and fundamental skill for academic…

In this age of accountability and assessment, classroom teachers need to be encouraged to become action researchers. Action research helps them look at a challenge in the classroom in depth and adjust the curriculum, their teaching methods, or both when they find that current practices are not meeting the needs of some or all students. If…

The primary purpose of our research was to determine if a comprehensive, phonics-based, direct instruction reading program would be effective in teaching early reading and language skills to students with moderate intellectual disabilities (ID). Participants were 28 elementary students from 10 public schools in an urban school district and one…

This study examined the influences of problem behaviors on kindergarten reading outcomes and investigated the extent to which explicit, code-based reading instruction moderated those relations among 206 children identified as being at risk of reading difficulty. Children from the classrooms of 57 kindergarten teachers in 12 schools were randomly…