This thematic analysis utilizes teacher insights from their experiences in an online professional development (PD) course on early reading instruction to determine course design features educators perceive as being beneficial and questions and concerns educators raised during the course. We analyzed discussion forum contributions and course…

The purpose of this experimental study was to examine the contribution of phoneme awareness training and orthography to the learning of new vocabulary words by partial alphabetic phase readers. Hypotheses included: Preschoolers taught to phonemically segment words with letters would outperform those trained without letters on an invented spelling…

The present study compared the effects of different mediation routines provided to kindergartners from families of low socioeconomic status on the students' invented spelling attempts and on their gains obtained on spelling and other early literacy skills (letter naming, sounds of letters, word segmentation, and word decoding). The effects of the…

This intervention study tested whether invented spelling plays a causal role in learning to read. Three groups of kindergarten children (mean age = 5 years 7 months) participated in a 4-week intervention. Children in the invented-spelling group spelled words as best they could and received developmentally appropriate feedback. Children in the 2…

Presents a group-guided invented-spelling instructional strategy called "Making Words" which teachers can use with beginning readers to develop their ability to spell words and to apply this knowledge when decoding during reading. Discusses how to plan and teach the strategy. Describes two sample lessons, and explores why the strategy works. (PRA)

In this article, Marilyn Chapman provides educators and others interested in early literacy with important information about phonemic awareness to help them make decisions about what to do in their schools. She begins with an explanation of phonemic awareness and how it relates to other aspects of literacy development such as phonological…

This yearbook contains the following 24 articles on a variety of topics: "A Model for Diagnostic Narratives in Teacher Education" (B. J. Walker); "Teacher Expectations: Modifying One's Teaching through the Self-Monitoring Process" (T. R. Blair and D. L. Jones); "Preparing Teacher/Researchers" (M. W. Olson and M. K.…

This book describes the special way one teacher, Jeanette Amidon, approaches children's thinking, with a particular focus on reading and writing instruction. The root value of her first-grade classroom in Massachusetts is respect for children's ideas, with the children's art and writing as visible signs of the teacher's respect for their thinking.…