The theoretical and practical implications of examining young children's acquisitions of phonological awareness skills with specific and differentiated processing tasks are explored in this study. The study presents data from 269 kindergarten children completing a phonological awareness protocol that provided information on 14 discrete…

A component of the "No Child Left Behind" Act (NCLB) (PL 107-110) is its emphasis on the importance of systematic and explicit instruction in early reading using practices that are grounded in scientific research. The Reading First legislation (Title I, Part B, Subpart 1) within NCLB is designed to support state and local education…

In this 1-year experimental study of 254 students across 27 high-poverty preschool classrooms in an urban setting in the northeast, use of a technology-based prekindergarten literacy curriculum in addition to the district curriculum was compared with the use of the district curriculum alone. Results indicated no main effects for the experimental…

There is growing evidence of cross-language transfer in metalinguistic processes related to reading acquisition and development. In particular, phonological awareness is a requisite process that shares similarities across Spanish and English. Through explicit instruction and instructional design analyses, we propose principles to facilitate…

Twenty nonhandicapped preschoolers learned either a list of 20 Blissymbols or an identical list of 20 printed words over period of instructional sessions. Blissymbol Ss acquired list significantly faster. Results are discussed in terms of theoretical assumptions made by Blissymbol proponents and the applicability in terms of theoretical…

The first paper published in the Journal of Research in Reading on the topic of phonological awareness ( Schreuder & van Bon, 1989) appeared some fifteen years after the seminal paper by Liberman, Shankweiler, Fischer and Carter (1974), which had demonstrated that there was a relationship between spoken word segmentation ability and reading…

Comics and graphic novels are being incorporated into upper elementary and middle school classrooms based on the novels' popularity and ability to stimulate interest in voluntary reading. Their format--combining words and sequential images--may hold power for an even younger audience. As beginning readers struggle to decode new words in books,…

Background: Children with complex communication needs (CCN) often experience problems achieving literacy. The aim of this project was to study phonological awareness, a central predictor for literacy achievement, in children with CCN, and to compare their performance to a group of children with natural speech. Method: One group of 15 Swedish…

The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) and the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) have identified topic areas that present a wide range of this nation's most pressing issues in education (e.g., middle school math, beginning reading, and character education). Within each selected topic area, the WWC collects studies of interventions (i.e., programs,…

The effects of the phonological similarity between a letter sound and the sound in a spoken word, and phonological awareness on letter-sound learning were examined. Two groups of 41 kindergartners were taught four letter sounds. First, both groups had to learn the associations between four symbols and four familiar words. Next, both groups were…

The effectiveness of a reading intervention using the whole-word multimedia software "Oxford Reading Tree (ORT) for Clicker" was compared to a reading intervention using traditional ORT Big Books. Developing literacy skills and attitudes towards learning to read were assessed in a group of 17 struggling beginner readers aged 5-6 years. Each child…

We evaluated the validity of DIBELS ("Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills") ORF ("Oral Reading Fluency") for predicting performance on the "Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test" (FCAT-SSS) and "Stanford Achievement Test" (SAT-10) reading comprehension measures. The usefulness of previously…

What kinds of relationships exist between educational policy, research and the professional knowledge of the teachers that implement these policies in practice? This article reports research that examined the role of teachers working in an environment formed by links between research, policy and practice. By adopting a contextual focus upon the…

The Lindamood Phonemic Sequencing (LiPS)[R] program (formerly called the Auditory Discrimination in Depth[R] [ADD] program) is designed to teach students skills to decode words and to identify individual sounds and blends in words. The program is individualized to meet student needs and is often used with students who have learning disabilities or…

This textbook is an illustrated reading primer. This small volume, intended as a first book for children, will, it is hoped, be found an acceptable aid to little learners in their earliest efforts to ascend the ladder of learning. The lessons contain the most simple words--those with which the ear of the child is familiar. By the combination of…