This paper summarizes a study that was conducted on data from children who received a one-on-one intervention called Reading Recovery[R] during the first half of their first-grade year in school. The purpose was to investigate the relationship between accelerated progress children made during and after receiving a Reading Recovery intervention,…

In this study of 116 high-poverty schools, we explored teaching and coaching in grades K-3. We developed and validated observation protocols for both coaching and teaching. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were computed to identify and confirm factors that explained the protocol data. Three coaching factors were identified in both…

Educators agree that the teaching of reading is of critical importance in elementary classrooms. Debates swirl as researchers and educators alike attempt to determine the most effective instructional practices in developing student engagement and achievement. One side aligns itself with explicit instruction of discrete literacy skills, the other…

The author presents four approaches to shared reading that he used with first through third graders in a high-needs, urban elementary school with a large population of students from immigrant homes. Using sociocultural and cognitive constructivist principles, the author shows how these approaches built students' academic vocabulary and…

Jason Loh, an experienced primary school teacher and a teacher educator, discovered a powerful way of using pictures with children's spoken and listening vocabulary to build their reading and writing vocabulary. The transformative moment for the writer occurred during his secondment to the sole, teacher-training institute of Singapore, the…

Phonological awareness (PA) and rapid automatised naming (RAN) skills in relation to reading acquisition were examined using two languages, one with a deep orthography (English) and the other with a shallow orthography (Korean). Participants were 50 Korean American children who spoke English as a dominant language (DL) and were learning to read…

In the field of English-language teaching, there has been increasing interest in how literacy development is influenced by institutional and community practice and how power is implicated in language-learners' engagement with text. In this article, I trace the trajectory of my research on identity, literacy, and English-language teaching informed…

Concerned about these statistics that only 31% of the eighth-grade students on the NAEP 2007 reading assessment performed on the proficient level or above, a university research team of educators conducted a multiple-case study, creating a collection of snapshots of adolescent students' literacy needs, and compared their needs to the instruction…

Literacy leaders in the classroom are often in a position to observe student characteristics and needs that accountability measures cannot detect. When students with obvious needs can still pass state tests, they can often be dubbed "proficient readers". It will take a particularly insightful teacher, with a clear view of what reading…

Recent Australian and international government reports refer to the importance of teacher knowledge in the sound structure of language and its relationship to beginning reading. In this study, a group of 162 pre-service teachers responded to a questionnaire including questions related to their attitudes towards using phonics instruction in the…

In urban middle schools, educators find it challenging to meet the literacy needs of the many struggling readers in their classrooms, including language-minority (LM) learners and students from low-income backgrounds. One strategy for improving these students' reading comprehension is to teach essential academic vocabulary in a meaningful,…

The purpose of this study was (1) to examine the causal effects of READ 180, a mixed-methods literacy intervention, on measures of word reading efficiency, reading comprehension and vocabulary, and oral reading fluency and (2) to examine whether print exposure among children in the experimental condition explained variance in posttest reading…

This article describes collaboration between three university professors and six preschool teachers who used photo-narration and the Language Experience Approach to support the language development of young children. For more than a century, educators have used children's personal experiences as a basis for language and literacy instruction. The…

Giving students a purpose and a passion for sharing their thinking through authentic learning experiences and giving them tools for writing through which they can risk new vocabulary, new language, and new thought is critical for the linguistic and cognitive development of students. Furthermore, students develop a deep understanding of content…

This manuscript focuses on neuroscience research that may have applicability for early childhood educators. Beginning with cautions about the usefulness of neurosciences, we offer reviews of several ideas that can inform the practice of early childhood educators. We begin with the understanding that reading is not innate, meaning that every brain…