The extent to which children's reading choices could be predicted by their motivation and gender identity was examined. Two hundred and twenty-three children (average age 9 years 11 months) completed questionnaires measuring book reading choices, reading motivation, gender identity (identification with masculine and feminine traits) and a…

Early literacy interventions have demonstrated that pedagogically sound programmes can boost reading achievement for students who do not succeed in early literacy learning. However, there is less evidence as to what extent gains are maintained in subsequent years or the factors which may contribute to sustained progress. The research reported in…

This paper investigates whether children's academic self-beliefs are associated with reading achievement and whether the relationship is modified by gender and/or age. Data were collected from children at risk of reading failure, that is, emergent readers (6- to 8-year-olds) in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas reading at a level below…

Studies have begun to focus on what skills contribute to the development of phonological awareness, an important predictor of reading attainment. One of these skills is the perception of prosody, which is the rhythm, tempo and stress of a language. To examine whether prosodic perception contributes to phonological awareness prior to reading…

This article focuses on a multicultural, low socioeconomic, intermediate school that over the 4 years of this longitudinal, qualitative, case study made substantial positive shifts in developing a more effective learning environment and improving students' reading achievement. The study found that the factors appearing to have the most influence…

In a 3-year longitudinal study, we examined the relationships between oral language development, early training and reading acquisition on word-identification and reading-comprehension tests administered to a sample of 687 French children. Hierarchical linear models showed that both phonological awareness and oral comprehension at the age of 4…

In Arabic, auxiliary verbs are necessary in the written language, but absent from the oral language. This is contrary to languages such as English and French in which auxiliary verbs are mandatory in both written and oral languages. This fact was exploited to examine if dissociation between written and oral forms affects reading measures like…

The development of interest in reading and its relationship to reading ability was examined longitudinally in 117 children in Grades 1-3. Interest in reading was measured by eight items from the Elementary Reading Attitude Survey. Less able readers had lower interest in reading, but their development was parallel to that of more able readers.…

Phonological awareness (PA) and rapid automatised naming (RAN) skills in relation to reading acquisition were examined using two languages, one with a deep orthography (English) and the other with a shallow orthography (Korean). Participants were 50 Korean American children who spoke English as a dominant language (DL) and were learning to read…

A meta-analysis of the relationship between attitudes in reading and achievement in reading was conducted to provide a statistical summary to the observed variability in the magnitude of previously reported effect sizes. A total of 32 studies, with a total sample size of 224,615 were used, and included a total of 118 effect sizes. A multi-level…

Reading literacy of fourth-grade students in Hong Kong showed a remarkable improvement from 2001 to 2006 as shown by international PIRLS studies. This study identified various aspects of the teacher factor contributing to the significant improvement among students. A total of 4,712 students and 144 teachers from 144 schools were randomly selected…

We present four studies indicating that the size and design of the typeface in textual material for children aged 7-9 may impair speed of reading and comprehension, and measurement of reading attainment. The first study compared the speed with which sample sentences were comprehended. The sentences were printed in Arial font with an x-height of…

The paper reports the results of a randomised control trial investigating the use of computer-aided instruction (CAI) for practising phonological awareness skills with beginning readers. Two intervention groups followed the same phonological awareness programme: one group undertook practice exercises using a computer and the other group undertook…

Vacations may have detrimental effects on maths and spelling performance, but the findings for reading are less conclusive. The purpose of this study was to analyse the effects of summer vacation on early literacy skills of young children. Participants included rising first and second-graders, most of whom were at-risk, struggling readers. No…

This study explores the long-term effectiveness of two differing models of early intervention for children with reading difficulties: Reading Recovery and a specific phonological training. Approximately 400 children were pre-tested, 95 were assigned to Reading Recovery, 97 to Phonological Training and the remainder acted as controls. In the short…