The present study focused on instruction in identifying the 1st sounds of different words. We taught this phonological awareness skill in a mainstream classroom through an evidence-based strategy of time delay to a student with severe intellectual and developmental disability. We implemented the time-delay strategy within a single-subject design…

Background: Research suggests that considerable individual differences may exist among preschool children in terms of emergent writing performance. However, there is no study examining this variability. Objective: This research explored the patterns of within-group individual differences in the emergent writing skills of preschool children.…

Purpose: Models of speech recognition suggest that "top-down" linguistic and cognitive functions, such as use of phonotactic constraints and working memory, facilitate recognition under conditions of degradation, such as in noise. The question addressed in this study was what happens to these functions when a listener who has experienced…

The direct influence of phonological awareness (PA) on reading outcomes has been widely demonstrated, yet PA may also exert indirect influence on reading outcomes through other cognitive variables such as morphological awareness (MA). However, PA's own development is dependent and influenced by many extraneous variables such as auditory…

This study, which utilized a modified metalinguistic awareness test adopted from Dita's (2009), probed on young children's metalinguistic awareness in identifying syntactic errors; determining sounds and the use of phonological segments; and explaining a word on their own by describing its appearance or its functions in English, Filipino, and…

The purpose of this study was to examine the shared, direct, and indirect contributions of three metalinguistic skills (phonological awareness, morphological awareness, orthographic knowledge) to the reading comprehension abilities of struggling adult readers. Across studies, these three metalinguistic skills have individually emerged as important…

Orthographic learning is one of the steps needed to achieve reading fluency. There are different variables that could influence the formation of orthographic representations. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of the previous semantic and phonological knowledge on the formation of orthographic representations. We used a decrease of…

Professional development (PD) is a potentially important mechanism for enhancing classroom practices and children's learning. In this large-scale randomized controlled trial, we examined the effectiveness of language and literacy PD, with and without coaching, offered at scale to early childhood educators (n = 546) across one state. Relative to…

There is considerable variability in the extent to which young people with developmental language disorder (DLD) experience mental health difficulties. What drives these individual differences remains unclear. In the current article, data from the Twin Early Development Study were used to investigate the genetic and environmental influences on…

Previous studies have found that phonological processing and vocabulary predict word reading. However, their predictive powers may vary according to reading experience and across scripts with different levels of transparency. In this study, the relationship between phonological processing, decoding, vocabulary and word reading was explored in two…

Few standardized language assessments are adapted to different cultural and linguistic contexts to assess children's first language (L1) abilities. We introduce the Ivorian Children's Language Assessment Toolkit for measuring phonological awareness, vocabulary, oral comprehension, and tone awareness in the Abidji, Attié, and Baoulé languages of…

Decades of research in the science of reading suggest that using scientifically based reading practices that are aligned with the science of reading will help improve literacy. Literacy is a necessary skill and is critical for a child's overall development. How well children learn to read in school can impact their future success. This mixed…

Purpose: This exploratory study describes the emergent literacy skills of children with developmental language disorder (DLD) who speak Spanish, a language with a simple phonological structure and transparent orthography. We examine differences between children with DLD and their typically developing (TD) peers on a battery of emergent literacy…

Children with weak decoding skills often struggle to learn multisyllabic words during reading instruction. The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which initial response to morphological awareness instruction, along with specific language and cognitive variables (i.e., phonological awareness, rapid naming, orthographic…

A major challenge in research with struggling adult readers is their heterogeneity in reading-related competencies and demographic characteristics. The purpose of this investigation was to identify unique profiles of skill sets among struggling adult readers and explore informative demographic differences between profiles. Using latent class…