Recent Australian and international government reports refer to the importance of teacher knowledge in the sound structure of language and its relationship to beginning reading. In this study, a group of 162 pre-service teachers responded to a questionnaire including questions related to their attitudes towards using phonics instruction in the…

For a number of students, early failure is highly predictive of later failure, severely limiting the development of skilled reading. Students who do not read fluently generally do not become good readers. In addition, students with inadequate fluency are likely to avoid reading because of fear of failure and negative attitudes--and students who…

The nature and frequency of speech production errors in neurodegenerative disease have not previously been precisely quantified. In the present study, 16 patients with a progressive form of non-fluent aphasia (PNFA) were asked to tell a story from a wordless children's picture book. Errors in production were classified as either phonemic,…

The vast majority of adults with learning disabilities are those with deficits affecting reading decoding, reading and writing fluency, and spelling. Many adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD) also demonstrate problems with reading and writing. Documenting the underlying reasons for reading underachievement among these…

The main objective of this study was to unveil similarities and differences in the word reading strategies of orally raised individuals with prelingual deafness and hearing individuals. Relevant data were gathered by a computerized research paradigm asking participants to make rapid same/different judgments for words. There were three distinct…

Despite significant regulations regarding the reading proficiency of students in the United States, more than half of students graduating high school are continually reading below proficiency (National Center for Education Statistics, 2010). In 2000 the National Reading Panel (NRP) identified phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and…

A structured intervention package including direct, scaffolded, instructional lessons was implemented using an error correction learning system and a picture book-based phonological and phonemic awareness activity for four participants with complex communication needs, ranging from 12 to 15 years, in a junior high school setting. Although…

Scope and method of study: The purpose of this research study was to examine the effectiveness of an (IMSE) Orton-Gillingham based multi-sensory instructional reading program when incorporated with kindergarten through first grade classroom reading instruction in one rural Midwestern school district. The IMSE supplemental reading program is…

Argumentative writing is a challenging communication task that calls upon sophisticated cognitive and linguistic abilities. Pre-adolescents (n = 80; mean age = 11;10; range = 10;6-13:5) were asked to write an argumentative essay on the controversial topic of training animals to perform in circuses. Additionally, they were asked to solve a set of…

Response to intervention (RTI) provides an opportunity to avoid long-term and sometimes costly intervention. The best models of the tiered approach to intervention are still under investigation. In this study, 23 first-grade students were identified as having below average reading abilities and/ or poor phonemic awareness through classroom-based…

Research indicates a strong relationship between phonological awareness and reading success. Phonemic intervention programs clearly show the benefits of explicitly teaching phonological awareness skills. Phonological awareness skills vary in nature and degree of difficulty and appear to follow a developmental progression. This study examined a…

Individual differences in word recognition, spelling, and reading comprehension for 324 children at a mean age of 16 were predicted from their reading-related skills (phoneme awareness, phonological decoding, rapid naming, and IQ) at a mean age of 10 years, after controlling the predictors for the autoregressive effects of the correlated reading…

The main aim of this study was to examine second language production and discrimination skills in the light of musical aptitude. Our study was conducted in university settings in south-western Finland. English was used as a model for the second language due to its popularity among young adults. There were three types of tests used in this study: a…

This pilot study examined the feasibility of a home-school partnership for improving emergent literacy skills in Spanish-speaking pre-school children of migrant farmworkers. Parents were requested to send labeled drawings of family activities to their children's classroom for supplementing bilingual language and literacy instruction. Participants…

Systematic-phonics instruction appears to be more effective than nonsystematic phonics instruction for teaching reading (Ehri, Nunes, Stahl, & Willows, 2001). In the present study, a systematic phonics approach was directly compared with a nonsystematic phonics approach for kindergarten children. Both approaches were delivered using computer…