Having strong alphabet knowledge early in life is a powerful predictor of long-term reading and academic outcomes. Upon tracking the alphabet knowledge of 172 children enrolled in their first year of Head Start, we identified that most of the children could name fewer than 10 letters at the beginning of the academic year. Approximately, one third…

Preschool children begin to represent spoken language in print long before receiving formal instruction in spelling and writing. The current study sought to identify the component skills that contribute to preschool children's ability to begin to spell words and write their name. Ninety-five preschool children (mean age = 57 months) completed a…

For bilingual children, the results of language and literacy screening tools are often hard to interpret. This leads to late referral for specialized assessment or inappropriate interventions. To facilitate the early identification of reading difficulties in English, we developed a method of screening that is theory-driven yet suitable for…

In Kannada, visual features are arranged in blocks called "akshara," making this a visually more complex writing system than typical alphabetic orthographies. Akshara knowledge was assessed concurrently and 8 months later in 113 children in the first years of reading instruction (aged 4-7 years). Mixed effects logistic regression models…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to retrospectively examine the preschool language and early literacy skills of kindergarten good and poor readers, and to determine the extent to which these skills predict reading status. Method: Participants were 136 children with language impairment enrolled in early childhood special education classrooms.…

Error analyses using a multidimensional measure were conducted on the misspellings of Kindergarten children speaking English as a first (EL1) and English as a second language (ESL) in order to detect any differences in early spelling ability between language groups. Oral vocabulary, syntactic knowledge, phonological processing, letter/word…

This study explored the viability of using kindergarten measures of phonological awareness, alphabet knowledge, and orthographic knowledge, administered in English, to predict first grade reading achievement of Spanish-speaking English language learners. The primary research question was: Do kindergarten measures of early literacy skills in…

This study explored the predictive effects of within- and cross-language early literacy indicators with regard to second language (L2) reading achievement in a Grade 3 entry-point French immersion (FI) program. Kindergarten students (N = 83) in a regular English program were administered English early literacy measures. Three years later, once…

Heritage language speakers struggle in European classrooms with insufficient material provided for second language (SL) learning and assessment. Considering the amount of instruments and pertinent studies in English SL, immigrant students are better prepared than their peers in Romance language settings. This study investigates how factors such as…

The present 4-year longitudinal study examined preschool predictors of Grade 1 dyslexia status in a Chinese population in Hong Kong where children started learning to read at the age of three. Seventy-five and 39 Chinese children with high and low familial risk respectively were tested on Chinese word reading, oral language skills, morphological…

Background: Learning to read is very challenging for Hong Kong children who learn English as a second language (ESL), as they must acquire two very different writing systems, beginning at the age of three. Few studies have examined the role of phonological awareness at the subsyllabic levels, oral language proficiency, and L1 tone awareness in L2…

In this study, we describe two studies used to select appropriate assessments to measure phonemic awareness, alphabetic principle, and fluency in the Spanish language for students receiving literacy instruction in Spanish. We first describe two studies in which we use linear regression and correlations to examine the appropriateness of different…

Recent and ongoing research has demonstrated the alarming likelihood of children from low-income homes and from ethnic minorities to read at much lower reading levels than their peers. Additionally, reading ability is related to the earliest of emergent literacy skills, which can be measured in young children before they enter formal schooling.…