The visual system is tuned by its inputs. The behavior of reading offers a unique way to examine tuning for visual representations (letters) because readers have massive experience recognizing letters in a systematic context (reading). One aspect of reading is that letters are highly crowded within words, which severely limits their…

This mixed methods study explored the influence of an interactive writing intervention on preschoolers' skills of emergent literacy, as well as teacher perceptions of the intervention. Before the intervention assessment scores were collected on the subscales of letter name identification, letter sound identification, onset-rime blending, and…

Little evidence exists on how best to support children's alphabet knowledge, which is a foundational early literacy skill. In this study, I investigated the impact of multisensory alphabet instruction on the alphabet learning of English monolingual and emergent bilingual (EB) children aged 3:5 to 5 years old. My primary aim was to examine whether…

This dissertation investigated whether specific music training components of pitch and rhythm had a differential effect on early literacy skills of phonological awareness, alphabet knowledge, and concept of word awareness. In addition, this study examined associations between musical aptitude and early literacy skills. The central element of this…

Teaching reading has been an ongoing challenge for many educators across the United States. Numerous studies suggest that teachers feel they were not adequately prepared to teach reading and have low efficacy in delivering literacy instruction. Teaching reading requires educators to be knowledgeable about the alphabetic principle, decoding new…

Collocations are words that have a tendency to co-occur within a few words' spans, e.g., "drink coffee" and "dark chocolate" in English. Growing empirical evidence suggests that both native (L1) speakers and advanced second language (L2) learners process two-word collocations faster than unconnected word pairs, and that…

Families face adverse experiences in gentrified urban areas, including dangerous living conditions, eviction, and homelessness. Parents and caregivers often work long hours to avoid these outcomes, leaving children with reduced home literacy interactions lacking necessary letter knowledge for kindergarten. This study examines the effectiveness of…

Rapid Automatic Naming (RAN) is commonly thought of as one of the best predictors of reading achievement when compared to phonological awareness and letter name knowledge (Norton & Wolf, 2012). However, only one previous study has demonstrated significant growth following a RAN intervention (Vander Stappen & Reybroeck, 2018). This…

Reading difficulties during childhood often continue during adulthood and result in adverse effects (e.g., unemployment, poverty). A common method to teach early literacy skills is via multisensory instructional programs, which use combinations of mnemonic devices, such as visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic movements. The current…

Reading is an essential skill for daily life and academic success. According to the connectionist model of reading, word recognition involves orthographic, phonological, and semantic processing, as well as the interactions among them. Language skill such as phonological processing, develops earlier than reading acquisition, and thus likely serves…

Twenty-two years ago, the National Reading Panel (2000) released a research synthesis of effective reading practices for classroom instruction. The first is phonemic awareness. The others are phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. This study examined the connection of assessment for kindergarten through second-grade students in the…

Despite a 100-year-old history and the existence of schools in nearly every country in the world, Waldorf education is a little known and poorly understood educational model that was developed in Europe by Austrian philosopher Rudolph Steiner. For many years it existed in the United States in the form of private schools. Few of their teachers or…