In an effort to understand cognitive foundations of oral language comprehension (i.e., listening comprehension), we examined how inhibitory control, theory of mind, and comprehension monitoring are uniquely related to listening comprehension over and above vocabulary and age. A total of 156 children in kindergarten and first grade from…

This study examined the role of reading disability (RD) risk and environmental protective factors in reading fluency in grade 4. The sample consisted of 538 Finnish-speaking students. Kindergarten measures included the students' risk for RD based on poor achievement in phonological awareness and letter knowledge as well as information on the…

This randomized control trial examined the efficacy of a multitiered supplemental tutoring program within a first-grade responsiveness-to-intervention prevention model. Struggling first-grade readers (n = 649) were screened and progress monitored at the start of the school year. Those identified as unresponsive to general education Tier 1 (n =…

Many educational policy initiatives use instructional coaching to accomplish their goals. Yet we know little about the role of reading coaches in mediating the relationship between policy and teachers' classroom practice. In this article, we investigate the role of reading coaches in mediating the relationship between Reading First policy and…

For the past decade, governments around the world have put an unprecedented focus on educational policy, to ensure the acquisition of literacy skills for all students (e.g., No Child Left Behind in the United States; the National Literacy Strategy in the United Kingdom; Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools in Ireland). Such initiatives…

Theoretical perspectives on spelling characterize development as a progression through qualitatively different phases or as a process of more or less continuous growth. This study investigated the potential utility of a different perspective, the overlapping-wave model, for characterizing spelling development (Rittle-Johnson & Siegler, 1999). In…

The aim of this five-year longitudinal study was to examine whether 13 Greek precocious readers' performance on a variety of reading, spelling, and phonological-awareness tasks from kindergarten through the fourth grade was different from that of 12 Greek nonprecocious readers and, if there were differences between the two groups' performances,…

The relation between Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) and reading comprehension at the end of first grade and second grade was examined in a sample of 1,518 first-grade students from a large urban school district. Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analyses were used to determine optimal DIBELS cut scores for…

This study evaluated the validity, reliability, and utility of five of the six subtests of Clay's (2002) Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement (OS), including Letter Identification, Word Reading, Writing Vocabulary, Hearing and Recording Sounds in Words, and Text Reading. In addition to a review of studies providing assessment of the…

In this article, the authors discuss aspects of Response to Intervention (RTI) that appear to be promising for the field of reading, and those that they view as problematic. Unlike many earlier models of innovation in special education service delivery, there is some research indicating promise. Most of that research has been conducted with…

This study examined the effectiveness of a little book curriculum in facilitating the independent word-solving skills of first-grade readers. The curriculum was based on a theoretical model that identified two critical dimensions of text-based support for beginning readers: linguistic content and cognitive load. The 15-week little book…

This study investigated the effectiveness of combining enhanced classroom instruction and intense supplemental intervention for struggling readers in first grade. Further, it compared two supplemental interventions derived from distinct theoretical orientations, examining them in terms of effects on academic outcomes and whether children's…

This study investigated the trajectories of preschool and first-grade childrens development of reading skills, as well as the cognitive and social antecedents of that development. One-hundred and ninety-six 5- to 6-year-old children were tested in October and April of their preschool year and again in the first grade. Data included measures of…

A team of first-grade teachers began to question their literacy/phonics program, which used a whole-class format for instruction. The teachers felt that teaching the whole class did not allow them to meet the diverse needs of all their students. One of the teachers introduced the rest of the team to developmental-spelling research (i.e., research…

Investigates the interactions of 16 first-grade children during one academic year as they participated in literacy events with their peers. Suggests that issues related to peer acceptance and reading competence complicate children's interactions during collaborative literacy events. Presents concepts critical to understanding how children with…