This study compares the effectiveness and efficiency of constant time delay (CTD) and simultaneous prompting (SP) to teach decoding and word reading to four students, 7 to 9 years of age, with intellectual disabilities (ID) in the mild to moderate range. An adapted alternating treatment design was implemented to assess the two methods. The results…

The purpose of this study was to examine word learning efficiency in at-risk first grade students (N = 93) participating in a yearlong study evaluating a multicomponent intervention targeting word reading and decoding skills. As part of each intervention lesson, students participated in a 1 to 3-min sight word reading activity in which…

This quasi-experimental study explored a response-to-intervention (RTI) design in which Tiers 2 and 3 were inverted for the most at-risk first grade students in reading intervention in seven classrooms (n = 24) across two culturally diverse schools. These students were matched using propensity scores and compared to a second group of first grade…

The present study investigated the relation among reading skills and attributions, naming speed, and phonological awareness across a wide range of reading skill. Participants were 1,105 school-age children and youths from two understudied populations: African Americans and Hispanic Americans. Individual assessments of children ranging in age from…

Ten first grade students who had responded poorly to a Tier 2 reading intervention in a response to intervention (RTI) model received an intervention of video self-modeling to improve decoding skills and sight word recognition. Students were video recorded blending and segmenting decodable words and reading sight words. Videos were edited and…

We compared the effects of two approaches to decoding on the word reading skills of struggling first-grade students: decontextualized, teacher directed decoding practice with manipulative letters and embedded, incidental decoding practice. Participants were 98 students at risk for reading disability. We randomly assigned participants to three…

The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of three computerized interventions on the reading skills of children with reading disabilities in Grade 2. This longitudinal intervention study included five test sessions over 1 year. Two test points occur before the intervention, and three afterwards. The last follow-up was conducted 1…

There is a growing literature demonstrating that speech rhythm sensitivity is related to children's reading development, independent of phonological awareness. However, the precise nature of this relationship is less well understood, and further research is warranted to investigate whether speech rhythm sensitivity predicts the different…

Research demonstrates that students learn to read words in contextual guessing, letter-sound decoding, analogy, and insight. The reading subtest results had demonstrated that the students in the word detectives group read significantly more words correctly than the students in the benchmark word identification program.

There are basically two different models for the word recognition process. One model postulates that a reader primarily uses sound/symbol cues to recognize a word; a second model states that a reader focuses mainly on whole-word characteristics. To determine which model best fits beginning and adult readers, a multiple regression analysis was…

Reports a study of readers' use of context and letter sound as polysyllabic decoding strategies, and a study of the effect of intervention strategies on subjects who do not effectively use context. Concludes that intervention strategies do not improve the performances of students who are not good users of context. (RS)

Reviews recent investigations that analyze the word-recognition responses of children taught by different methods and reanalyzes the results of W. Wiley's 1928 naturalistic experiment in order to deduce the nature of the process underlying the learning of words. (Author/CS)

The history of teaching people to read is explored from the introduction of the Greek alphabet about 3,000 years ago to the present renewed interest in sound symbol relationships. Greek schoolboys were required to learn first the alphabet in order, next commonly used syllables, and then words. English was first written in the Latin alphabet using…

A study was conducted to test the thesis that teaching word recognition skills in a manner compatible with the learner's auditory or visual modality preference would facilitate beginning reading instruction. A group of 62 students in two first grade classrooms was studied; one class stressed the presentation of words as whole units, the other…

This study compared the effectiveness of reading instruction at the onset-rime level, phoneme level, and whole word level with 48 first graders. Both phoneme and onset-rime groups were significantly more accurate than whole word groups, and there was a tendency for the onset-rime group to outperform all other groups. (Author/DB)