Meant to guide administrators and teachers as they strive to meet Governor George W. Bush's goal for all students to read on grade level by the end of grade 3, this booklet presents descriptions of components of a research-based beginning reading program. The first section describes 12 essential components of a beginning reading program. In this…

The effects of vocabulary instruction on word knowledge and reading comprehension were investigated. Average students learned some word synonyms under all conditions except a noninstructional control condition. However, learning disabled students acquired fewer meanings across all conditions and seemed to require more direct instruction in order…

A study investigated the ability of socially handicapped Israeli students to determine a word's meaning from its linguistic context. The results and their implications for second language instruction are examined in light of current theories of context. (MSE)

Reviews research in which children's processing of individual words is examined in prose context. When taken together, the data suggest that the reader's dependence on contextual constraint for individual word identification decreases with age. (HOD)

An extensive case history of instructional environment and acquisition of reading skills by 50 first-grade students in ten classrooms indicates that the rate at which students mastered decoding depended on classroom instruction with direct instruction appearing most profitable for children from low-socioeconomic backgrounds. (MKM)

Investigates whether prereaders who knew all their letters are better at forming logographic access routes than letter-sound access routes into memory from words read by sight. Concludes that prereaders become capable of forming letter-sound access routes when they learn letters well enough to take advantage of the phonetic cues the letters…

Develops the idea of a phonetic-access dictionary by which the isolated spoken word is looked up directly in a phonetically transcribed lexicon of either the tradlitional hard-copy or the more flexible magnetic-media form. Typical applications and benefits to the EFL learner are presented. (58 references) (Author/CK)

The Progressive Tactile Timetable was developed to enable pupils with visual impairments and severe learning difficulties to progress from use of concrete symbols (objects of reference) to the abstract tactile Moon code (a simplified raised line version of the Roman print alphabet). A case study illustrates its application with an adolescent with…

Discusses a study of the relationship of Australian elementary school students' word reading strategies to comprehension level, reading time, and phonemic awareness. Reports that performance in reading both irregular and nonsense words is a reasonably good predictor of subsequent performance. Recommends remedial training for students lacking…

Literacy instruction of about 100 adults at the Harvard Adult Literacy Center (Massachusetts) revealed different patterns for English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) learners or for learners with learning disabilities. Adult learners showing the learning disability pattern averaged a 1-year gain after 1 semester (20 hours) of instruction. ESL learners…

A study of 93 Spanish-speaking Latin American children of low socioeconomic background with reading difficulties found that, 4 years later, 17% had average reading ability, but 11% remained with severe reading difficulties. Characteristics examined include IQ, phonological processing, decoding ability, reading comprehension, and other verbal…

The present study combined parallel data from the Northeast-Northwest Collaborative Adoption Projects (N2CAP) and the Western Reserve Reading Project (WRRP) to examine sibling similarity and quantitative genetic model estimates for measures of reading skills in 272 school-age sibling pairs from three family types (monozygotic twins, dizygotic…

This investigation examined the use of computer-assisted instruction (i.e., "WordMaker") on students having different levels of reading ability. Of particular interest were the effects of "WordMaker" on the spelling performance of first graders in a co-taught classroom. In a short 10-week period, the "WordMaker" software program had a positive…

Research suggests New Zealand has the biggest gap between its highest and lowest achievers, and this is known as the "long tail". The debate over whole language and phonics approaches to reading is unfinished, but must now focus on where the point of difference lies. While reading involves a range of skills, teachers need to model the…

This study set out to investigate the self-teaching of good and poor readers in pointed Hebrew--a highly regular orthography. Four groups of children (three groups in Grades 4 to 6, and one group in Grade 2) were included in this study; poor readers with large discrepancies between IQ and reading ("dyslexics"), IQ-nondiscrepant poor…