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There is tremendous variation in the use of American English by major geographic regions, as well as within these regions or cities, and by cultural background. The variety of English spoken by many African American people in the United States is called African American English (AAE). AAE affects early literacy skills in ways that may require differentiated classroom instruction that focuses on integrating this important language variety into both teaching and learning. The purpose of this paper is to: (1) present the characteristics of AAE and its relationship to the development of reading; (2) outline the impact of AAE on foundational language and reading skills, especially phonemic and phonological awareness; and, (3) provide some guidance for addressing variation in the classroom when teaching phonemic and phonological awareness, while simultaneously affirming African American children's identitities by acknowledging and celebrating the language strengths they bring to the classroom.

This article addresses the characteristics of learners in the emergent stage of literacy development and describes two instructional practices that facilitate the development of the alphabetic principle and concept of word in text.

The purpose of this paper is to explain how teachers can build on children's oral language resources to support writing. Thus, we offer recommendations and specific examples for classroom applications that connect oral language with written expression. Specifically, we provide examples on the transition from phonemic awareness to phonics to word writing to sentence writing, and to oral and written responses that address genre expectations. Specifically, we address sentence rehearsals, sentence expansion, and sentence combining that teachers can model and collaboratively conduct so learners use oral language as a vehicle for written production and communication with readers.

Teachers are asked to use reading science to inform how they teach phonics and phonological awareness. As teachers look to the research base to guide their practice, some questions and concerns regarding what best practice looks like have come up. This article starts with a brief description of phonics and phonemic awareness and then discusses topics of issue in a developmental order, addressing phonemic awareness, phonics, and morphology. Current research is used to discuss 10 questions teachers are asking as they navigate applying reading research in the classroom.

A hallmark of skilled reading is recognizing written words automatically from memory by sight. How beginning readers attain this skill is explained. They must acquire foundational knowledge, including phonemic segmentation, grapheme-phoneme knowledge, decoding, and spelling skills. When these skills are applied, spellings of words become bonded to pronunciations and meanings and stored in memory. Suggestions for teaching these skills are offered. These include picture mnemonics to teach letters, articulation to teach phonemic segmentation, and sound streaming to teach decoding. It is important to teach decoding with grapheme-phoneme subunits rather than syllabic units. It is important to read words in text to bond meanings to spellings in memory. It is important for beginners to read words in text aloud rather than silently. Showing students spellings of new vocabulary words when they are taught improves their memory for the words. Students progress through four alphabetic phases in acquiring these skills. Systematic phonics instruction facilitates movement through the phases.

This article describes four key principles from Targeted Reading Instruction (TRI, formerly called Targeted Reading Intervention), an evidence-based early reading intervention and professional development program. Focused on accelerating the growth of students not yet meeting grade-level expectations, one-on-one 15-minute daily TRI lessons engage students in developing phonemic awareness, phonics knowledge, decoding, fluency, vocabulary, and beginning reading comprehension. Four key principles guide TRI, which can be applied to classroom reading instruction. First, all work is done in the context of real words and connected text, placing "meaning at the heart" of instruction. Second, lessons "keep it moving," as they follow a consistent structure, use activities to achieve multiple objectives, and make use of all available resources. Third, TRI teachers "let the student do the work," engaging students in productive struggle. Fourth, "explicit teaching of skills" such as blending provides students with unique strategies to become confident independent readers.

Letter learning is nuanced, complex, and essential to the development of an effective literacy processing system. Forming and naming letters, rapidly differentiating between visually similar letters, and recognizing their sound correspondences are foundational to becoming a reader and writer. Indeed, control over letters affects monitoring, searching, and self-correcting in reading and writing. The authors argue for (a) assessment that monitors evolving letter knowledge, (b) instruction that is focused and brief and capitalizes on students' unique strengths and ways of knowing, and (c) isolated letter work that is balanced with the use of authentic texts. Transcripts of teacher-student interactions during reading and writing, personal alphabet books, magnetic letter sorts, and links to teacher resources illustrate how letter learning can be fostered in a variety of activity settings while ensuring student engagement and supporting overall literacy development.

The National Reading Panel (NRP) identified five pillars, or essential components, of reading instruction that lead to the highest chance of reading success--phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. A decade after the NRP's report, the majority of US states adopted the Common Core State Standards/English Language Arts & Literacy (CCSS/ELA). One of the most significant changes of the CCSS/ELA is a focus on knowledge development as part of literacy development and focus on the acquisition of literacy skills specific to different disciplines. In highlighting these connections between ELA and knowledge as part of literacy, the CCSS/ELA provide an opportunity for teachers to emphasize what research has validated for decades: that knowledge is a critical component of the reading process. In this column, we describe why knowledge development should be viewed as the sixth pillar of reading instruction and how teachers can increase their students' knowledge building through reading.

Based on a first grade teacher's search for approaches to promote successful reading acquisition in her first grade classroom, the authors present a curricular engagement in which the teacher explored using music, specifically singing songs, as a fun and motivating way to accelerate reading progress. The premise is that singing (while at the same time having a visual display of the words in the songs) can be a very useful instructional tool to teach reading to beginning readers. The process involves learning one new song (accompanied by the printed lyrics) per week, followed by repeated readings/singings, discussions of content, and activities related to phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency and word work. The children made on average more than a year's reading growth during the duration of the teacher's investigation. This article explores the possibilities and benefits of having beginning and/or struggling readers sing as an instructional strategy to enhance reading progress.

This teaching tip applies research on phoneme awareness (PA) to propose an instructional model for teaching PA. Research suggests children need to learn the identifying features of phonemes to recognize them in spoken words. In the model, teachers focus on one phoneme at a time; make it memorable to children through sound analogies supported by illustrations, hand gestures, and graphemes; provide engaging practice detecting the phoneme in "tongue ticklers" and in spoken words; and lead children to transfer their knowledge of phonemes to the task of learning to read words. (Contains 3 figures.)

A history of poverty and low academic achievement in four urban schools pointed to the need to implement an early intervention focused on oral language and emergent literacy. The Kindergarten Early Literacy Tutoring (KELT) Program was designed to target senior (5 year old) kindergarten students most at-risk. The intervention consisted of an extra half-day of instruction 5 days a week in addition to the Ministry-mandated half-day kindergarten program. The evaluation of the KELT program compared the achievement of students in the program to a comparison group on a battery of oral language and emergent literacy skills. Results showed that students in the KELT program out-performed the comparison group on most of the assessments, thereby closing the academic gap. Based on the evaluation of the program, the school district has expanded the program to serve four other schools. (Contains 6 tables and 3 figures.)

While much research and many curricula have surfaced for teaching phonemic awareness to young learners, we worked with preschool and kindergarten teachers who were frustrated with some children they found hard to teach. Many children easily grasped the instruction provided to them, but others were not catching on even when using suggestions provided in published curricula. We problem solved with teachers and taught them to make additional helpful comments during instruction that acted as scaffolds. Over time teachers learned how to use these scaffolds to differentiate instruction for individual learners. They learned when to use many comments (to provide higher levels of scaffolds) and when to use fewer comments (to provide lower levels of scaffolds). Teachers were able to ensure that nearly all preschoolers and kindergartners reached appropriate levels of phonemic awareness. (Contains 2 tables.)

A strong relationship exists between phonological processing skills and learning how to read and write in an alphabetic language. How easily a child can use this phonological information has an impact on his or her decoding. For most children, phonological processing skills develop through literacy experiences at home and in their kindergarten classrooms. Yet for some students, learning to detect and manipulate the phonemes in words can be difficult. For these children, using sound boxes to add a kinesthetic aspect to this auditory process scaffolds their learning as they become more adept at manipulating the phonemes in words. This article presents a system of organization and delivery for sound boxes, including guidelines for selecting appropriate words and establishing a gradient of difficulty for instruction, and describes a gradual-release-of-responsibility model for teaching phoneme segmentation. (Contains 1 figure and 1 table.)

Several decades of research have established the critical role of phonemic awareness in the development of beginning reading. In particular, phonemic awareness makes early phonics instruction useful for children and facilitates their ability to blend letter sounds while decoding words, to learn sight words reliably, and to spell phonetically. A key finding in phonemic awareness research is that instruction involving segmenting and blending phonemes combined with a focus on the letters that represent those phonemes contributes greatly to success in beginning reading and spelling. The author found that students benefit greatly from a variety of activities combining phoneme segmenting and blending with letter-sound instruction. This variety allows children to develop a robust ability to apply phonemic awareness to tasks of reading and writing and supports students who may struggle with this critical process. In this article, the author describes five "phonemes-in-use" activities and practical ideas for implementing them in the classroom. (Contains 2 figures.)

For this content analysis study, the author examined and cross-compared the various ways in which eight informal reading inventories (IRIs) published from 2004 to 2008 address key issues relevant to new U.S. federal guidelines and the National Reading Panel's five critical components of reading instruction. Results suggest the IRIs range in technical rigor, with only one providing sufficient reliability data to support use of alternate forms. Measures for comprehension and vocabulary are more common than for fluency, phonemic awareness, and phonics. Some of the IRI authors offer passages in Spanish. All of the IRIs have their strengths and limitations, but each one offers special features that set it apart from the others. Results have implications for literacy-related professionals searching for IRIs well-suited to various educational settings and classroom contexts. (Contains 1 table.)

Revisits the literacy development of two at-risk first graders who participated in Reading Recovery for one semester, but who responded to the instruction in very different ways. Rethinks beliefs about effective instruction concerning four instructional issues: phonics and phonemic awareness, text selection, the use of context clues, and the issue of balance. (SR)

Describes an action research project carried out by a kindergarten teacher as she incorporated phonemic awareness activities into the daily classroom routine. Discusses classroom activities, how she developed data collection processes, and how her data analysis showed systematic student growth in literacy and enthusiasm. (SR)

Presents strategies teachers might use to assess and promote beginning readers' phonemic awareness, a factor shown to be strongly linked to the successful acquisition of reading ability. (MG)

Describes the concept of phonemic awareness and offers suggestions to classroom teachers on how to enhance phonemic awareness in their students. (PRA)

In this article, a reading specialist tells her own story of making parental involvement work with kindergarten children in her school. Using a research-based instructional routine that involves parents and children in repeatedly reading a rhythmical text followed by a brief activity involving letter learning, phonemic awareness, and phonics, this teacher-researcher shares the results of her efforts to help young students become readers.

The author shares activities for use in the primary classroom that require active participation with nursery rhymes through dramatization. The activities involve repeated readings, reading in context, and examining rhyming components, and help to develop young children's phonemic awareness and oral language skills.

Notes that a major issue in literacy instruction today is whether commercial reading programs emphasizing phonemic awareness and phonics are more effective than teacher-designed programs that focus on literature-based reading and process writing with integrated skill instruction. Reviews two books that address this controversy. Presents seven additional books about writers' workshop, reading comprehension instruction, children's literature, and storytelling. (SG)

Offers a 69-item list of children's books published in 1996 or 1997 that are suitable for kindergarten and first-grade children in helping them develop phonemic awareness. Offers a letter to parents that describes some specific activities they can do at home that highlight phonemic awareness. Offers a parents' phonemic awareness observation record. (SR)

Examines the terms "phonemic segmentation" and "phonemic awareness," noting that these areas go beyond older notions of readiness and auditory discrimination. Claims that research in phonemic awareness has important instructional implications. (MM)

Reading and writing are essential components of literacy. Children's initial preschool experiences with literacy set important foundations for later school success. Instruction that can create a bridge between reading and writing to support children's developing understandings in both these areas of literacy has powerful implications for their literacy growth. This teaching and learning in action guide explores meaningful connections between reading and writing by examining the way in which one prekindergarten teacher supports children's reading–writing skills across various components of written language (i.e., sounds, letters, words, sentences, and content) and within various instructional contexts (centers, small groups, large group/read‐aloud). This article shares research‐based approaches in the context of specific examples in which the focal teacher fosters meaningful reading and writing connections using two key read‐alouds as starting points. How do we make reading–writing connections in preschool across contexts and learning experiences to support children's literacy in meaningful, engaging, and developmentally appropriate ways and make connections visible to children? What high‐quality reading and writing experiences influence preschoolers' engagement in activities? What ways are reading and writing addressed in your classroom across various instructional contexts (i.e., whole group, small group, centers)? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a quasi‐experimental study, kindergarten teachers taught children mnemonic stories to orient the confusable letters b and d. In the first week's stories, intervention teachers introduced the left‐to‐right sequence of features for these letters with "the bat hits the ball" and "a dime rolls up to a domino." The second week's stories dramatized how to print these letters efficiently. Comparison teachers taught their normal literacy curriculum. Intervention students significantly outperformed students in the comparison group in letter naming and letter printing. They gained accuracy in letter recognition that transferred to selecting the correct word from similar b and d words and in reading simple words with b and d. These findings support a new path to establish reliable recognition of letters that vary only in orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A hallmark of skilled reading is recognizing written words automatically from memory by sight. How beginning readers attain this skill is explained. They must acquire foundational knowledge, including phonemic segmentation, grapheme–phoneme knowledge, decoding, and spelling skills. When these skills are applied, spellings of words become bonded to pronunciations and meanings and stored in memory. Suggestions for teaching these skills are offered. These include picture mnemonics to teach letters, articulation to teach phonemic segmentation, and sound streaming to teach decoding. It is important to teach decoding with grapheme–phoneme subunits rather than syllabic units. It is important to read words in text to bond meanings to spellings in memory. It is important for beginners to read words in text aloud rather than silently. Showing students spellings of new vocabulary words when they are taught improves their memory for the words. Students progress through four alphabetic phases in acquiring these skills. Systematic phonics instruction facilitates movement through the phases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID‐19 pandemic has dramatically affected U.S. schools since March 2020. K–12 schools have put in place various forms of remote learning to continue the education of students. In trying times like these, young students face unique unprecedented challenges. Often, they need parents' and/or guardians' supervision and guidance at home. How can teachers work with young students and their parents or guardians to ensure high‐quality and equitable teaching and learning during the COVID‐19 pandemic? More specifically, how can teachers support young students' word study from home during trying times? An ABC scavenger hunt can be a great activity to support young students' word study while bridging home and school and fostering a positive home learning environment. We share teaching tips developed by a first‐grade teacher over the past several months. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning about being a reader is more than teaching phonics. A pilot study of shared picture book reading in early childhood education as a means to support young children in developing a broader understanding of literacy, in addition to phonics and phonological awareness, is discussed. The Early Language and Literacy Classroom Observation (ELLCO) (Pre‐K) tool was administered in six early childhood contexts, revealing a range of strengths and weaknesses in classrooms observed. There was little evidence of picture book reading playing an integral part of the early childhood literacy programs. Shared reading activities were absent in some contexts. In others, books were selected on the basis of length or a phonics focus. In an era of phonics first, this article is a timely reminder that shared reading of quality children's literature can support development of a range of reading strategies including phonics while developing a joy for reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Competing theories are quite common in education. In spelling research, two general perspectives have emerged over the years: stage theory and repertoire/alternative theories. Exploring these perspectives is important because teachers need to understand how spelling knowledge is critical for learning to read words and to write them. Stage theory suggests that learners follow a developmental progression that reflects the increasing complexity of the spelling system itself. Alternative theorists suggest that learners do not follow a linear progression but are able to understand much more information about the spelling system throughout their development. The author explores the debate between these two conceptions, identifying not only important differences but also where there is common ground. Implications for spelling, word analysis, and vocabulary instruction are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has indicated that adding mind‐set and self‐regulation strategy instruction to the writers' workshop framework may improve motivation, independence, and academic success in young writers. Invented spelling can strengthen the relation between phonological and orthographic representations. The authors examined the impact of growth mind‐set instruction on writing using a strategy of "brave spelling" to encourage students to use invented spelling skills to increase the sophistication of their writing. The authors combined research on invented spelling and growth mind‐set to create unique lesson plans focused on the development of word‐reading skills, alphabetic knowledge, and phonological awareness. In 10 weeks, 12 kindergartners bravely spelled 240 different words that conventionally contain five or more letters. This research was incorporated into the "brave spelling" lesson plan. The authors explore how creating a culture of brave spellers is one strategy for helping students write any words they can imagine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With increasing expectations on students regarding written communication, the promotion of student agency in writing is more important now than ever. Teachers must find ways to engage and empower all learners throughout the writing process so they can produce authentic and meaningful writing independently. To promote such agency, educators must allow students to do more of the work, even while scaffolding for students who need more support. Supporting students in ways that promote metacognition, using their own voice and ideas, pinpointing their individual needs, and encouraging student leadership throughout the writing process kindle students' capacity and inclination to take initiative for their own achievement. The author presents strategies that teachers can use to promote student metacognition and agency during the writing processes while allowing students to keep their own writing identity and build independence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spelling instruction has been researched over the last several decades, but unfortunately, researchers have determined that best practices have not generally transferred to classroom practice. The authors explored how quality word study professional development rooted in nonnegotiable tenets provided a framework for teacher and student construction of knowledge and practice. This work resulted in reframed conceptual knowledge on the part of the teachers and achievement growth on the part of the students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors emphasize the importance of cultivating autonomous motivation for literacy in early childhood by supporting students' basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness while building foundational skills. Additionally, the authors highlight four key findings specific to early childhood (pre‐K–2) literacy development: the power of teaching letters and associated phonemes in tandem, the impact of oral language on comprehension, the role of print concepts in learning to read, and the influence of early writing on reading. Sample activities, adapted from preexisting promising practices to incorporate opportunities for addressing students' basic psychological needs, accompany each finding. Finally, the authors make a sincere appeal for additional research, including educator action research specific to early childhood literacy motivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poetry can help develop in students a love for reading, writing, and playing with language, yet it is often a neglected literary form in many reading curricula. Those who see the value of poetry recognize it as the perfect genre for teaching phonics, fluency, and a love of language. The rhyming, rhythmical language of poetry provides the perfect backdrop for teaching word families (rimes/phonograms). Poetry also helps young readers develop fluency through the use of beautiful, melodic language that begs to be read repeatedly, which helps develop prosody and a lifelong love for literacy. The thoughtful selection of words also provides the right context for vocabulary development and critical thinking. However, for teachers who love poetry, the most important reason to use this text type may simply be that it works! [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Improving literacy outcomes for each and every student is a goal worthy of educators’ best efforts. This high goal is made more challenging by shifting mandates in education that can leave literacy professionals and school leaders disoriented, seeking a guaranteed fix. The authors propose a more coherent, more effective way to attain this goal: thinking of the school as a system. The authors discuss four essential elements for designing a schoolwide system for literacy learning: a shared vision and set of core values; common goals, common language, and collective responsibility; a high level of teacher expertise; and a culture of continuous professional learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Decoding, building fluency, and exploring word and sentence meanings are important elements of literacy instruction in elementary classrooms. Shared literacy experiences provide opportunities for teachers to engage students in meaningful reading experiences. This article describes a quick four‐step process for conducting close sentence reading, a shared literacy experience focused on decoding and comprehending short excerpts of challenging text. Classroom examples and a sample excerpt and chart are included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The purpose of this article is to rethink how sight words are categorized in early childhood classrooms. Three categories of words (regularly spelled, temporarily irregularly spelled, and permanently irregularly spelled) are presented as a way to think about the orthographic representations of words and how these representations interact with students’ grapheme–phoneme knowledge. Five kindergarten students were trained on explicit grapheme–phoneme mapping of 10 regularly spelled sight words during eight sessions lasting approximately 10 minutes each. Results demonstrated significant improvement from pretest to posttest on reading target words (p = 0.013, Cohen's d = 1.93) and nontarget words (p = 0.005, Cohen's d = 1.93). These preliminary findings indicate that the use of the categorization scheme based on student knowledge coupled with direct and explicit instruction of words that were previously taught as whole units may be an efficient and effective instructional method for securing regularly spelled sight words in memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Interactive writing is a process‐oriented instructional approach designed to make the composing and encoding processes of writing overt and explicit for young students who are learning to write. It is particularly suitable for students who struggle with literacy learning. This article describes one first‐grade teacher's use of interactive writing to teach her students what it means to write and how they could go about it. The project documents the writing processes, conventions, and strategies that the teacher taught during interactive writing lessons across one academic year and illustrates how the students learned and subsequently used those conceptual tools to mediate their independent writing. Results of the project demonstrate the expediency of interactive writing instruction for supporting the learning‐to‐write process and hold important implications for writing instruction in the early childhood program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical literacy provides the opportunity to queer picture books and challenge normative depictions of family. In this autoethnography, the author describes her 4-year-old's journey of learning to talk back to texts as she actively constructs a better, more just world. The author argues that a critical literacy tool kit is vital to every child's first experiences with books. Implications for classroom teaching are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has indicated that a large percentage of primary-grade students who struggle in reading have not achieved full competency in the foundational reading competencies (word recognition and fluency). In this article, the author argues that more intensive instruction of the foundational competencies is needed and proposes a simple lesson approach that may help improve the reading outcomes of students who struggle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While learning to spell in English is integral to becoming a literate writer, it is a complex and gradual skill to master. If English spelling is understood from a phonological, orthographic, and morphological perspective, its transparency becomes evident. The case study described in this article shines a light on an Australian Year 4 classroom teacher and one of the students in the class. It illustrates the importance of teacher knowledge in the linguistics of spelling and how teachers can apply their content and pedagogical knowledge to encourage children to talk about the spelling strategies they use. Teachers who model and encourage the use of metalanguage while integrating spelling instruction with meaningful reading and writing experiences can empower students to build autonomy and confidence in their spelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces SAIL, an instructional framework designed to help teachers optimize students' learning during small-group word study instruction. Small-group word study interactions afford opportunities for teachers to engage students in thinking, talking, advancing vocabulary knowledge (including general academic vocabulary), and making connections to reading and writing while furthering students' knowledge of orthographic features. Yet, often, these opportunities are not leveraged. The SAIL framework encourages attention to these areas through four components: Survey, Analyze, Interpret, and Link. First, the author describes the SAIL components; then, to reveal some of SAIL's potential for enabling more robust instruction, she presents transcribed vignettes from a first-grade classroom. The highlighted classroom was part of an exploratory study of K-1 classroom implementation of SAIL. SAIL can also be applied with learners at more advanced elementary grades. A list of elementary-appropriate general academic vocabulary words is included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article shares recent research findings in early literacy that every primary grade teacher has had questions about at one time or another ranging from handwriting to phonemic awareness, writing to concepts about print, and more. The article reports research that elaborates upon and extends early literacy research that was reported by the National Early Literacy Panel Report in 2008. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During her first two years of teaching, a kindergarten teacher (first author) developed a writing program grounded in five instructional strategies that repeatedly appear in emergent writing research-modeling, Scaffolded Writing, invented spelling, word walls, and reader response-and in the overarching principle of Gradual Release of Responsibility (Pearson & Gallagher, 1983). Using Gentry's Writing Scale (Gentry, 2005) as a frame for structuring her own observations and data collection, she illustrates how the writing program evolved and how it gets implemented in her classroom, and demonstrates the clear growth students made in one year using this approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quick adoption of iPads into the classroom, coupled with the many apps targeting early literacy skills, offers a new way to build early literacy skills with emergent and beginning readers. However, young children may be more proficient with the technology than with the literacy concepts, and may not be maximizing learning, or even learning at all, when using apps. This article uses the gradual release of responsibility framework as a way to integrate iPads into early literacy classrooms. The sequence of direct instruction with modeling and teacher think alouds, followed by guided and independent practice, offers teachers a way to differentiate instruction and ensure that all students are effectively working on literacy concepts targeted to their individual instructional level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]