Set for variability (SfV) is an oral language task that requires an individual to disambiguate the mismatch between the decoded form of an irregular word and its actual lexical pronunciation. For example, in the task, the word wasp is pronounced to rhyme with clasp (i.e. /waesp/), and the individual must recognize the actual pronunciation of the…

In an effort to improve oral reading, beginning and remedial reading programs in English focus on phonological awareness skills and recoding with grapheme--phoneme correspondences. The meanings of the words children practice reading aloud are given little emphasis. Some studies now suggest semantic knowledge may have a direct effect on children's…

Bringing effective, research-based literacy interventions into the classroom is challenging, especially given the cultural and linguistic diversity of today's classrooms. We examined the promise of Assessment-to-Instruction (A2i) technology redesigned to be used at scale to support teachers' implementation of the individualized student instruction…

The Common Core set a standard for all children to read increasingly complex texts throughout schooling. The purpose of the present study was to explore text characteristics specifically in relation to early-grades text complexity. Three hundred fifty primary-grades texts were selected and digitized. Twenty-two text characteristics were identified…

Phoneme awareness, letter knowledge, and rapid automatized naming (RAN) are well-known kindergarten predictors of later word recognition skills, but it is not clear whether they predict developments in accuracy or speed, or both. The present longitudinal study of 172 Danish beginning readers found that speed of word recognition mainly developed…

In the present study, we investigated critical factors in letter-sound acquisition (i.e., letter-name knowledge and phonological awareness) with data from 653 English-speaking kindergartners in the beginning of the year. We examined (a) the contribution of phonological awareness to facilitating letter-sound acquisition from letter names and (b)…

Longitudinal structural equation modeling was used to evaluate longitudinal relationships across adjacent grade levels 1 to 7 for levels of language in writing (Model 1, subword letter writing, word spelling, and text composing) or writing and reading (Model 2, subword letter writing and word spelling and reading; Model 3, word spelling and…

This study of 1,338 Spanish-speaking 1st graders examined contextual effects of bilingual programs on reading comprehension and the effect of language of instruction within these contexts. The study included 128 classrooms in 32 schools located in border Texas and in urban Texas and California. These classrooms used either English immersion or…

The authors examined the development of oral language and decoding skills from preschool to early elementary school and their relation to beginning reading comprehension using a cross-sequential design. Four- and 6-year-old children were tested on oral language and decoding skills and were retested 2 years later. In all age groups, oral language…

Effects of a 1-semester professional development (PD) intervention that included expert coaching with Head Start teachers were investigated in a randomized controlled trial with 88 teachers and 759 children. Differential effects of technologically mediated (remote) versus in-person (on-site) delivery of individualized coaching with teachers also…

The research addresses the role of lexical analogies in early reading by examining variation in children's self-reported strategy choices in the context of a traditional clue-word reading task. Sixty 5- to 6-year-old beginning readers were given a nonword version of a traditional clue-word reading analogy task, and changes in strategies were…

1,000 words were rated for imagery by adults. 63 first graders and kindergarteners were then taught to read 756 of these words. Results showed that this imagery rating was significantly related to the subjects' ability to read (learn) the words. The word list with imagery ratings is presented. (RC)

This paper studied interactive-compensatory predictions in relation to comprehension. It was suggested that when reading predictable text, attention of both good and poor readers is available for comprehension processing but for different reasons: good readers use their context-free word recognition skills, and poor readers use repetitive sentence…

Two experiments involving 80 4-year olds were conducted to assess how children who differ in vocabulary knowledge learn new vocabulary incidentally from listening to stories read aloud. Results clarify the role of active responding by demonstrating that verbal and nonverbal responses enhance vocabulary acquisition. (SLD)

Study uses predictable books to compare three reading treatments reflecting different components of a whole-to-part instructional model. In three first-grade classrooms, beginning readers working with isolated words in a modified word bank activity learned more words than when they worked with sentence strips. Discusses implications for the use of…