Reading Interventions

Foundational research

Research to Practice: Phonemic Awareness in Kindergarten and First Grade

Abbott, M., Walton, C., & Greenwood, C. R. (2002). Research to practice: Phonemic awareness in kindergarten and first grade. Teaching Exceptional Children, 34 (4), 20-26.

Teachers attend a workshop and learn about a "research-based" practice. A consultant works with the teachers for a while to set up the program and maybe even conduct an evaluation and follow-up instruction. The consultant leaves; the teachers are on their own. A couple of years later, nobody can find evidence the program ever existed. Does this sound familiar? Why does this occur? What happens to make teachers drop programs that may even be excellent? The secret may lie in what does not happen. We set out to discover the secret to successful research-based practices as teachers use them in real life. The example we chose was a phonemic-awareness program; this article describes how phonemic-awareness research and intervention knowledge was successfully translated for teacher implementation – over 3 years.

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Getting Reading Right from the Start: Effective Early Literacy Interventions

Hiebert, E.H., & Taylor, B.M. (1994). Getting reading right from the start: Effective early literacy interventions. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

From Amazon.com:
This edited book brings together descriptions of seven literacy intervention programs used by experts to prevent early reading failure in grades K-1. Programs focus on story book reading and writing with attention to word-level strategies, and are developmental, not remedial. Early childhood literacy, diagnosis and treatment of reading difficulties.

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Writer's Workshop, Graphic Organizers, and Six-Trait Assessment: A Winning Writing Strategy Combo

James, L., Abbott, M., & Greenwood, C. R. (2001). Writer's workshop, graphic organizers, and six-trait assessment: A winning writing strategy combo. Teaching Exceptional Children, 33 (3), 30-37.

What Makes Literacy Tutoring Effective?

Juel, C. (1996). What makes literacy tutoring effective? Reading Research Quarterly, 31, 268-289.

In 1991, researchers Connie Juel reported that university student-athletes who were poor readers seemed to be effective tutors of first-grade children who were poor readers. This 1996 study explores factors that may account for successful tutoring outcomes when poor readers tutor other poor readers. Two activities were found to be particularly important in successful tutor-student relationship: (a) the use of texts that gradually and repetitively introduced both high-frequency vocabulary and words with common spelling patterns and (b) activities in which children were engaged in direct letter-sound instruction. Two forms of verbal interaction were found to be particularly important: (a) scaffolding of reading and writing and (b) modeling of how to read and spell unknown words.

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Developmental Steps in Learning to Read: A Longitudinal Study in Kindergarten and First Grade

Morris, D., Bloodgood, J.W., Lomax, R.G., & Perney, J. (2003). Developmental steps in learning to read: A longitudinal study in kindergarten and first grade. Reading Research Quarterly, 38, 302-328.

This study tested a hypothesis about the growth of word knowledge in kindergarten/first-grade readers. It was predicted that (a) phoneme awareness develops in phases and (b) concept of word in text (ability to finger-point read) interacts with phoneme awareness in the development of early reading skill. Structural equation modeling showed that the longitudinal data fit the hypothesized model. The data also conformed to the predicted developmental sequence in a descriptive analysis of median performance change over time. The demonstrated relationship between phoneme awareness and concept of word in text, for its pedagogical implications alone, warrants further study.

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Beating the Odds in Teaching All Children to Read

Taylor, B., Pearson, P., Clark, K., & Walpole, S. (1999). Beating the odds in teaching all children to read. CIERA Report #2-006. University of Michigan: Ann Arbor.

The authors used quantitative and descriptive methods to investigate school and classroom factors related to primary-grade reading achievement. Fourteen schools across the U.S. with moderate to high numbers of students on subsidized lunch were identified as most, moderately, or least effective based on several measures of reading achievement in the primary grades.

A combination of school and teacher factors, many of which were intertwined, was found to be important in the most effective schools. Statistically significant school factors included strong links to parents, systematic assessment of pupil progress, strong building communication, and a collaborative model for the delivery of reading instruction, including early reading interventions. Statistically significant teacher factors included time spent in small group instruction, time spent in independent reading, high pupil engagement, and strong home communication. More of the most accomplished teachers were frequently observed teaching word recognition by coaching as children were reading, in addition to providing explicit phonics instruction, than the least accomplished teachers and teachers in the moderately or least effective schools.

Additionally, more of the most accomplished teachers and those in effective schools were frequently observed asking higher level questions after reading than their counterparts. In all of the most effective schools, reading was clearly a priority at both the building and classroom level.

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Additional articles

Recognition and Response: An Early Intervening System for Young Children At-Risk for Learning Disabilities

Coleman, M.R., Buysse, V. & Neitzel, J. (2006). Recognition and Response: An early intervening system for young children at-risk for learning disabilities. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, FPG Child Development Institute: Chapel Hill, NC.

Some young children show signs that they may not be learning in an expected manner, even before they begin kindergarten. These children may exhibit problems in areas such as language development, phonological awareness, perceptual-motor abilities, and attention, which are considered precursors of learning disabilities in older children. However, under current state and federal guidelines, these children are unlikely to meet eligibility criteria for having a learning disability. This is because formal identification of a child's learning disability generally does not occur until there is a measurable discrepancy between the child's aptitude and academic achievement, often not until the second or third grade.

This report describes a method of addressing those warning signs immediately.

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Remediation Training Improves Reading Ability of Dyslexic Children

Trei, L. Remediation Training Improves Reading Ability of Dyslexic Children. Stanford Report, 25 May 2003.

For the first time, researchers have shown that the brains of dyslexic children can be rewired -- after undergoing intensive remediation training -- to function more like those found in normal readers.

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