Teachers' knowledge of literacy has gained considerable interest over the last three decades, largely with a focus on the basic language constructs of phonological awareness and phonics. Fewer studies, however, have focused on spelling. Given the close relationship between reading and spelling and the necessity of an explicit understanding of the…

Many children living in linguistically diverse low- and middle-income countries learn to read and write in multiple languages. Recent research provides implications for effective reading instruction with multilingual learners (e.g., Hall et al. in New Dir Child Adolesc Dev 166:145-189, 2019). However, there is limited empirical evidence on…

A portion of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) exhibit a strength in early word reading referred to as hyperlexia (HPL), yet it remains unclear what mechanisms underlie this strength. Typically developing children (TD) acquire phonological awareness, alphabet knowledge and language skills as precursors to word reading. We compared these…

Languages differ in the way that speech and meaning are represented in written form: in English, the correspondences are variable. Thus, in learning to read in English there is need for an approach that combines alphabetic decoding and a mastery of sight vocabulary. Teaching children to read should develop from an analysis of the skills and…

This study examined the effects of an early reading intervention on preschool-age dual language learners' (DLL) early literacy skills. Instruction in phonological awareness and alphabet knowledge was embedded in interactive reading strategies, also known as dialogic reading. A single subject multiple baseline across subjects design was applied to…

Better understanding the mechanisms underlying developing literacy has promoted the development of more effective reading interventions for typically developing children. Such knowledge may facilitate effective instruction of deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children. Hence, the current study examined the multivariate associations among phonological…

Better understanding the mechanisms underlying developing literacy has promoted the development of more effecting reading interventions for typically developing children. Such knowledge may facilitate effective instruction of deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children. Hence, the current study examined the multivariate associations among phonological…

Research Findings: The current study reports on the results of a longitudinal investigation of the language and early literacy development of a sample of dual-language learners (DLLs) and monolingual English speakers from low-income families who received an Early Reading First intervention during their Head Start preschool year. A total of 62…

In England, Higher Education institutions, together with the schools whose staff they train, are being required to incorporate synthetic phonics as one of the key approaches to the teaching of reading. Yet even if synthetic phonics can be identified as one of the component "skills" of reading, an assumption vigorously contested in this…

We present a meta-analysis to test the validity of the Simple View of Reading Gough & Tunmer ("Remedial and Special Education," 7:6-10, "1986") for beginner readers of English and other, more transparent, orthographies. Our meta-analytic approach established that the relative influence of decoding and linguistic comprehension on reading…

Objective data on the relative frequency of occurrence of the multifarious phoneme-grapheme correspondences of English, which the author dealt with in an earlier book, Relative Frequency of English Spellings, are applied to the learning of reading. The target audience includes the educator, the textbook author/publisher, and the classroom teacher.…

US government mandates to implement intensive phonics instruction in elementary classrooms invoke an alleged scientific superiority of this approach over more meaning-centered models. But curiously absent from this scientific enterprise is a study of the phonics system itself. Advocates of intensive phonics have not demonstrated that the commonly…

Semitic writing systems such as that used to write Arabic are unique among st alphabetic writing systems in that in Semitic systems short vowels are represented as diacritics on consonant letters, and not represented at Allin text intended for skilled readers. Arabic is unique here in that the letter used to represent a consonant differs in shape…