It has been more than 50 years since Clay (1966) first introduced the concepts about print (CAP). Emergent readers, aged 4-5, must acquire an understanding of basic and hierarchical concepts of letters, words, and sentences; they must also learn basic knowledge about texts and books; they must develop an awareness of book orientation,…

Imagine reading the following text: [characters omitted]. One will not be able to comprehend this sentence unless she or he can read Korean--is able to decode characters and words in the Korean orthography and has an understanding of the Korean language. This example illustrates the absolutely necessary role of word reading in reading…

In this article, I highlight the impact that the simple view of reading (SVR) has had on the field of reading over the last 30 years. I argue that the SVR has led to many significant advancements in our understanding of reading comprehension. I also contend that it has contributed to some false impressions concerning comprehension that impact…

Research into reading difficulties in Russian has been taking place for about a century, since the 1920s. Early research established a line of studies on reading acquisition difficulties in the context of highly structured practices of teaching reading. These practices were propagated in the mid-late 19th century by Konstantin Ushinskii, who…

The decades-long and contentious debate over how students are taught to read centers around the role that phonics and alphabetic code-related skills have in reading instruction. Some claim that these skills are not prioritized in most elementary classrooms because teacher education programs do not adequately prepare preservice teachers (PSTs) to…

This study examines associations between writing instruction with a focus on explicit sentence syntax and reading comprehension in a sample of students receiving special education services. While the outcome data does not show direct causation between student enrollment in a treatment writing course using Systemic Functional Linguistics and…

This paper describes our experiences with implementing an innovative approach to decoding our discipline, which involves writing dialogue-driven stories that explore authentic, context-rich problems within introductory business statistics. Our paper begins by introducing the decoding model created by Middendorf and Pace (2004). We then explain why…

A hallmark of skilled reading is recognizing written words automatically from memory by sight. How beginning readers attain this skill is explained. They must acquire foundational knowledge, including phonemic segmentation, grapheme-phoneme knowledge, decoding, and spelling skills. When these skills are applied, spellings of words become bonded to…

Over the past two decades, reading fluency has been increasingly recognized as an important instructional variable for success in reading. Yet, this has not always been the case. This article presents a historical review of the nature and role of fluency instruction in the United States. The roots of oral reading fluency began in an age when texts…

Ofsted's (2021. Curriculum research review series: Languages (OCRR). https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/curriculum-research-review-series) sees 'phonics' as one of three key 'pillars of progression' in language learning. This paper critically examines this view, beginning with the OCRR's definition of 'phonics'. Focussing on the teaching…

Background: A significant portion of adults struggle to read at a basic level. Word reading (defined here as decoding and word recognition) appears to play a pivotal role for this population of readers; however, less is known about how word reading relates to other important semantic processes (e.g., vocabulary, sentence processing) known to…

All students can benefit from a deeper understanding of how our language works. "Playing With Language" shows elementary school educators (K-6) how to think about, talk about, and manipulate language out of context. This cognitive skill set, known as metalinguistic awareness, is an important component of reading ability. This practical…

Two experiments explored rates for introducing grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) and the types of correspondences taught for optimal alphabet and early literacy skills learning. In both studies, children entered with minimal alphabet knowledge and were randomly assigned within classrooms to one of two treatments delivered individually over…

This exploratory study examined the nature of instruction provided in two reading intervention programs designed for elementary-grade students with dyslexia (The Multisensory Teaching Approach and Reading RULES!). In addition to documenting the proportion of time dedicated to particular content components (i.e., letter-name knowledge, phonological…

Research has shown that language and literacy skills in a first language (L1) are related to performance in a second language (L2) and that these relations are reciprocal. However, cross-linguistic skills related to word reading are influenced by numerous factors. These include linguistic factors such as the specific language and literacy skills…