The purpose of this research study was to prove if students who are intellectually disabled can obtain phonemic awareness and the ability to read independently with the use of Wilson's Fundations. This study aims to investigate if students who have been identified as intellectually disabled are able to gain phonemic awareness by using Wilson's…

This transnational comparative study between Costa Rica and the United States provides an in-depth understanding of the similarities and differences of the early literacy practices of educators in the Pre-Kindergarten to Kindergarten classroom settings. Drawing upon Costa Rica's curricular approach to Early Childhood Education, based upon the…

The study tested phonological awareness in a cross-sectional sample of 200 Arabic-speaking 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, and 10th graders from low and mid-high Socio-Economic Status (SES). Participants were native speakers of a local dialect of Palestinian Arabic spoken in the north of Israel. Twelve phonological awareness tasks were administered: six of…

This study examined the response of two students in the Southwestern United States with autism spectrum disorder and IQ in the intellectual disability range to a comprehensive, text-based reading intervention. The intervention, "Friends on the Block," includes multiple strands of literacy providing explicit instruction in phonics,…

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…

The acquisition of a second language (L2) may be challenging in adulthood, as the phonological system of the native language (L1) can sometimes limit the perception of phonological contrasts in L2. The present study aimed to (a) examine the influence of an L1 (Hebrew) that lacks a phonemic contrast for vowel length on the ability to discriminate…

Purpose: This study evaluated the equivalence of the Test of Integrated Language and Literacy Skills (TILLS) when administrated via telepractice (Tele-TILLS) and face-to-face methods. Method: Participants were 51 children and adolescents in three age bands, ages 6-7 years (n = 9), 8-11 years (n = 21), and 12-18 years (n = 21). Data were gathered…

Shadowing, a practice of repeating what one hears as simultaneously and accurately as possible, has been researched in the Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) field for years. The research findings have shown that shadowing contributes to English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners' bottom-up listening skills, which leads to…

Equipping elementary (i.e., grades K-5) teachers with adequate content and pedagogical knowledge to promote effective reading instruction based on the science of reading is a crucial piece of the reading education puzzle. We reviewed 20 empirical studies to examine the impact of teacher preparation and training programs on elementary teachers'…

Advocates of the science of reading have argued that (a) teacher preparation programs do not provide adequate preparation to teach code-related reading skills; (b) as a result, teachers lack knowledge of this area of literacy development; and (c) without that knowledge, teachers are unable to effectively teach students to read. In this integrative…

One of the most significant reasons children struggle with primary literacy skills is due to poor phonemic knowledge and understanding. This study was designed to identify foundational strategies necessary, needed, and used to help decrease struggles in reading performance and academic growth while addressing long term guidance for higher reading…

This study longitudinally examined the effects of cognitive and sociopsychological individual differences (aptitude, motivation, personality) and the quantity and quality of second language (L2) experience on L2 speech gains in naturalistic settings. We elicited L2 spontaneous speech from 50 Chinese learners of English at the beginning and the end…

Some listeners exhibit higher sensitivity to subphonemic acoustic differences (i.e., higher speech gradiency). Here, we asked whether higher gradiency in a listener's first language (L1) facilitates foreign language learning and explored the possible sources of individual differences in L1 gradiency. To address these questions, we tested 164…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of an 18-day summer tutoring program in which graduate student tutors delivered 15 minutes of differentiated reading instruction (DRI) and a 30-minute interactive read-aloud (IRA) lesson each day. Students in grades K-5 (N = 179) attending a summer program at one urban elementary school…

Phoneme discrimination is the ability to detect subtle similarities and differences between phonemes. Phoneme discrimination is a strong predictor of reading development and poor phoneme discrimination may predict reading disabilities (Lyytinen et al., 2004). The ability to discriminate phonemes may be an even more critical skill for Emergent…