This inservice professional development module, part of the Alabama Reading Initiative, presents research summaries, notes for presenters, and activities. The Phonemic Awareness and Phonics module clarifies that skilled readers are accurate and automatic decoders (i.e., they have the alphabetic principle). Phonics instruction must empower all…

This executive summary discusses our current understanding of the difficulties that children with reading/learning disabilities encounter as they start down the road to reading and summarizes research on early identification and intervention. The focus is on children in kindergarten through second grade. Findings from the analysis indicate: (1)…

Teaching the benefit of systematic instruction in decoding strategies, this self-instruction manual for teachers in word recognition skills stresses reading instruction in an environment that has comprehension as its goal. Quality reading materials constitute the core of this early reading program. New in the sixth edition are additional review…

This booklet presents many examples of instructional activities that occur on a daily basis on the campuses of Spotlight Schools, schools identified by the Texas Education Agency as having student populations that reflect a diversity of ethnicity and socioeconomic backgrounds, and demonstrate that essentially all children can become readers. It is…

The literature on individual differences in cognitive processes that operate at the text level is reviewed. Poor readers display comprehension deficits independent of word-decoding skill, due to deficient syntactic abilities and to more general metacognitive strategies. The general conclusions from this review and from Part One (ED 150 706) are…

Examines the influence of reading experience on spelling skill development. Sixth graders, good at both skills, consistently outscored their peers. Good readers but poor spellers did not differ from those poor at both skills on measures involving sound-spelling, orthographic and visual information, but outperformed the latter when use of…

This paper reviews graphophonic factors underlying the development of reading competence and their relationship to functional aspects of reading. The paper suggests that attention be paid to aspects of visual form, such as the use of typographic and linguistic cues, to improve the operational effectiveness and motivational appeal of materials for…

Contends that, although early precursors to reading and the first phases of reading acquisition have been extensively studied, the acquisition of different components of the reading process have not been considered. Reviews research from the past 15 years to examine the relationship between decoding and comprehension skills. (CFR)

A study evaluated the effects of supplemental reading instruction for 256 students in kindergarten through Grade 3 (158 Hispanic). Children who received the supplemental reading instruction performed significantly better on measures of word attack, word identification, oral reading fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension after 15 to 16…

This study evaluated the effectiveness of a four-step phonological awareness strategy on the reading skills of nine third-grade students with learning disabilities or educable mental retardation. Results indicated students made substantial improvement on measures of blending and segmenting sounds, pronouncing words, auditory discrimination, and…

Purpose: Guided reading is a common practice recommended for children in the early stages of literacy development. While experts agree that oral reading facilitates literacy skills, controversy exists concerning which corrective feedback strategies are most effective. The purpose of this study was to compare feedback procedures stemming from 2…

This study examined whether family history of reading disability influences the efficacy of reading remediation. A retrospective review of children's performance in a reading remediation program was carried out along with parental interviews for 102 families. Significant improvements were found in the areas of nonword decoding, phonological…

The vast majority of students with learning disabilities at the postsecondary level demonstrate reading decoding, reading fluency, and writing deficits. Identification of valid and reliable psychometric measures for documenting decoding and spelling disabilities at the postsecondary level is critical for determining appropriate accommodations. The…

This guide explains the purpose, components, and use of the Sight/Sound System, which is an alternative reading instruction approach designed to meet the individual needs of learners of all ages who have poor decoding skills. Described in the first section are the ways in which the system works to accomplish the following goals: develop…

The computer-based reading and study skills curriculum which is described was developed to meet the need for a more efficient and effective means of increasing the reading and study skills of Navy recruits. The parameters specified by the Navy led to the development of a curriculum composed of a modified version of an existing reading curriculum…