Discusses aspects of phonological processing and linguistic awareness that may set the stage for initial reading development. Hypothesizes about the distinctness of phonological representations. Distinguishes phonological representations of high distinctness from other representations by many features. Compares the distinctness hypothesis to the…

Investigates the order of acquisition of phonological sensitivity skills among preschool and kindergarten children. Supports a developmental conceptualization of phonological sensitivity. Discusses findings in relation to their implications for improving assessment, early literacy instruction, and prevention of reading difficulties. (SG)

Discusses how the differing views held by teachers and immigrant parents and their children affect early reading instruction, secondary content reading, and reading involving technology. Demonstrates that immigrant students and their parents hold different beliefs about reading and schooling than those held by many teachers. Concludes it is…

Examines the effect of strategic reading instruction in conditions not previously studied: two third-grade classrooms of Navajo learners. Notes that one class received instruction designed to foster the use of reading strategies and the second class did not. Suggests that strategy instruction positively affected the behavior of the students in the…

Investigates word identification in Arabic and basic cognitive processes in reading-disabled (RD) and normal level readers of the same chronological age, and in younger normal readers at the same reading level. Indicates significant deficiencies in morphology, working memory, and syntactic and visual processing, with the most severe deficiencies…

Finds that engaged reading occurred in a fourth-grade classroom when students and teachers used interpretive tools to select, connect, and organize information in the text to construct meaningful interpretations and that there were cognitive, metacognitive, and motivational components to the engagement observed. (PA)

Compares the effectiveness of two oral reading practices on second graders' reading growth: shared book reading and round-robin reading. Concludes that the shared book experience was superior to round-robin reading in reducing young children's oral reading errors, improving their reading fluency, and improving their reading comprehension. (PA)

Explores the professional decision making of preservice elementary teachers regarding reasons given for selecting children's literature for classroom use. Finds that such decisions were influenced by concerns with how the literature could be employed in the classroom, the extent to which the teachers personally connected to the literature, and…

Finds that the number of books and the amount of time treatment group children read and/or were read to by family members significantly increased over no-treatment comparison children, especially for boys. (RS)

Explains why the Clinton administration's answer to illiteracy, embodied in the "America Reads Challenge," in the United States is not a solution and only diverts accountability from the failure of the public-education system. It argues that phonics is the best way to teach reading and provides the principles of reading instruction. (GR)

Investigates the amount of classroom time devoted to actual text reading and writing or talking about what was read during the reading period in elementary classrooms. Finds that students spent only half as much time learning about reading and writing as actually reading and writing. (RS)

Studies how the implementation of the K-W-L can be varied in different classroom settings to ensure that it has the desired effect on the reading comprehension and learning of elementary and middle school children. Suggests that the K-W-L approach is one strategy, among others, that should be taught thoroughly. (PA)

Ascertains whether there were any significant differences in the early reading ability of kindergarten children who received direct instruction with environmental print, those who received indirect instruction, and those who received no instruction. Uses analysis of covariance to ascertain differences. Reveals that the control group and the…

Finds that rapid automatic naming ability did not uniquely explain variance in reading outcome measures, but that individual differences in phonological awareness in both second and third grades did uniquely explain growth in reading skills over this developmental period. Discusses results in the context of methodological issues in the use of…

Examines the effectiveness of two intervention paradigms that treat phonological awareness and grapheme-phoneme conversion in severely learning disabled third- to fifth-grade students. Finds that an implicit learning paradigm as practiced in the Stabilized Learning System is more effective than an explicit methodological approach as practiced in…