A two-cohort cluster randomized trial was conducted to estimate effects of small-group supplemental vocabulary instruction for at-risk kindergarten English learners (ELs). "Connections" students received explicit instruction in high-frequency decodable root words, and interactive book reading (IBR) students were taught the same words in…

The purpose of this study was to test the efficacy of a Tier 2 standard protocol supplemental intervention designed simultaneously to develop root word vocabulary and reinforce decoding skills being taught to all students in the core beginning reading program with kindergarten Spanish-speaking English learners (ELs). Participating students were…

Reading Recovery (RR) is a short-term early intervention designed to help the lowest-achieving readers in first grade reach average levels of classroom performance in literacy. Students identified to receive Reading Recovery meet individually with a specially trained Reading Recovery (RR) teacher every school day for 30-minute lessons over a…

This article reports the outcomes of an experimental evaluation of "Read Well Kindergarten" (RWK), a program that focuses on the development of vocabulary, phonological awareness, alphabetic understanding, and decoding. Kindergarten teachers in 24 elementary schools in New Mexico and Oregon were randomly assigned, by school, to teach RWK…

This study examined the components of a one-on-one literacy tutoring model to identify the necessary and sufficient elements for helping struggling beginning readers. The tutoring components of interest included word work using manipulative letters, written word work, and a generalization component. Reading assessment data from 100 first-grade…

This study compared the effects of 2 supplemental interventions on the beginning reading performance of kindergarteners identified as at risk of reading difficulty. Students (N = 206) were assigned randomly at the classroom level either to an explicit/systematic commercial program or to a school-designed practice intervention taught 30 min per day…

This study examined the first-grade reading progress of children who participated in an intensive beginning reading intervention in kindergarten. Specifically, the study investigated whether kindergarten intervention could prevent first-grade reading difficulties, or produce an "inoculation" effect, for some children under certain…

We examined the benefits of computer-assisted instruction (CAI) as a supplement to a phonics-based reading curriculum for kindergartners in an urban public school system. The CAI program provides systematic exercises in phonological awareness and letter-sound correspondences. Comparisons were made between children in classes receiving a sufficient…

A randomized experimental design with three levels of intervention was used to compare the effects of beginning reading interventions on early phonemic, decoding, and spelling outcomes of 96 kindergartners identified as at risk for reading difficulty. The three instructional interventions varied systematically along two dimensions--time and design…

Forty-seven children (ages 4-6) with language handicaps were assigned to receive training in 1 of 3 categories of phonological tasks (rhyming, blending, and segmenting) or a control group. Subjects made significant progress in each experimental category but demonstrated little or no generalization within a category or between categories.…

Finds teaching prereading kindergartners in the rime analogy strategy and prereading skills resulted in more reading than teaching either alone. Notes many children developed the untaught abilities of medial and final phoneme identity and the letter recoding reading strategy; and children were able to generalize the rime analogy strategy to read…

A study involving 28 teachers found Peer-Assisted Literacy Strategies (PALS) enhanced reading performance of first-grade students, although not equally for all learner types. Students who were low-achieving who participated in both PALS and teacher-directed small-group mini-lessons benefited more greatly than students who participated only in…

Explores the effectiveness of "word boxes" phonics instruction on beginning first-grade children's word identification and spelling performance. Finds that children in the word boxes condition significantly outperformed children in a more traditional phonics condition. Indicates that word boxes lessons can be a viable phonics approach to…

In Experiment 1, it was found that 5-year-old new school entrants taught by a synthetic phonics method had better reading, spelling and phonemic awareness than two groups taught analytic phonics. The synthetic phonics children were the only ones that could read by analogy, and they also showed better reading of irregular words and nonwords. For…

The effects of a book reading technique called interactive book reading on the language and literacy development of 4-year-olds from low-income families were evaluated. Teachers read books to children and reinforced vocabulary in the books by presenting objects that represented the words and providing opportunities to use the words. (BF)