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This paper addresses a gap in research regarding the efficacy of software programs to help children with reading difficulties. Forty-two children aged 5-13 years identified as poor readers participated in a study over twelve weeks using ReadingDoctor, a software program targeting phonemic awareness, orthographic-phonemic mappings, decoding ability and sight word recognition. Measures were taken using the Sutherland Phonological Awareness Test - Revised (SPAT-R), the Test of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE), and the graphemes and decoding subtests of the Phonological Awareness Test 2 (PAT-2). A quasi-experimental one group study with three multiple baseline measures was used. The dependent variables/measures were assessed seven times over a period of 32 weeks, allowing the research to be completed in the school-allocated timeframe. Significant improvements were found on all three measures of phonological/phonemic awareness and word-reading efficiency. These improvements were maintained when assessed three months later, during which time the software program was not used.

Reporting on a qualitative study, informed by Australian Government Indigenous education and literacy policies, this article unveils early career teacher reflections about infusing Aboriginal perspectives in the English curriculum using multimodal texts. Forging a praxis between the Aboriginal practice of yarning (Bessarab & Ng'andu, 2010) and Freire's (1974, 1996) frameworks for conscientisation and teachers as facilitators, the project overlays the work of Ladson-Billings (1995) and Foster, Halliday, Baize &Chisholm (2020), to unravel how culturally responsive pedagogy manifests in early career primary school teaching. We discuss teacher starting points and challenges to be culturally responsive educators, who use appropriate Aboriginal texts in classrooms. Results suggest that yarning is useful for meeting English curriculum outcomes and for collaboratively developing decolonising knowledge, which can impact multiple stakeholders. Recommendations for future research include co-designed projects to support teacher education through multimodal texts and yarning practices with Aboriginal Elders.

University websites and internet search engines were used to locate information about literacy units addressing early reading instruction offered in Australian primary and early childhood teacher preparation programs. Data concerning course organizational details, the content of literacy units, and the qualifications and research interests of unit coordinators were collected for 40 Australian tertiary institutions. Results indicate that references to early reading content in unit descriptions were generally included with other literacy subject matter, the total tuition time available for early reading instruction was limited, and many unit coordinators did not have expertise in early reading. In addition, it would appear that essential research-based content such as phonics, phonemic awareness, and the alphabetic principle may not be adequately addressed in many units. An amendment to Standard 2.5 of the guidelines set out in the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers may assist in resolving some of these issues.

The Report of the National Reading Panel (NICHD, 2000) identified five key elements that were critical to the development of reading, and these have been widely accepted by educational jurisdictions as providing definitive guidelines for early reading instruction. This paper presents a case for the inclusion of oral language and early literacy experiences as an additional and foundational element. The pervasive influence of a child's early experiences on future reading achievement must be understood if teachers are to maximise the opportunities of all children to become independent readers.

With the prevalence of statements that refer to a need to "bridge", "narrow" or "close" gaps in achievement it would appear that Government bodies have an appreciation for the fact that students need not be victims of circumstance. In addition to this, research has suggested that certain skills, such as the acquisition of phonemic awareness, need to be acquired in the early years to ensure that children do not fall behind their peers. Use of feedback is one way in which teachers have attempted to positively influence student outcomes. There are authors, however, who have suggested that not all forms of feedback are necessarily effective. In light of these perspectives, this study sought to investigate whether the incorporation of student/teacher conferences into a pre-existing program could be seen to support the development of phonemic awareness skills of students in their first year of schooling.

This study investigated the effect of preschool-wide, teacher-implemented, phoneme-focused phonological awareness (PA) and letter-sound knowledge (LSK) instruction, on raising code-based school-entry reading readiness for children with Spoken Language Difficulties (SLD) and Typical Development (TD), when supported by weekly coaching by trainee speech-language pathologists. A total of 90 4-year-old children participated, whereby 50 children, inclusive of 13 children with SLD, received 10 weeks of preschool-wide, teacher-delivered, phoneme-focused PA and LSK instruction. In all, 40 children, inclusive of 10 children with SLD, continued with the usual preschool program. Post-instruction, children in the experimental condition performed significantly higher in phoneme awareness, LSK, and early decoding compared with control children. Children with SLD in the experimental condition performed significantly higher in phoneme awareness and LSK, but not in early decoding, compared with control children with SLD. Overall, preschool-wide, teacher-implemented, phoneme-focused PA and LSK instruction can support code-based reading readiness skills for children with SLD and TD.

This paper demonstrates how teacher accreditation requirements can be responsibly aligned with a scholarly impetus to incorporate digital literacies to prepare pre-service teachers to meet changing educational needs and practices. The assessment initiatives introduced in the newly constructed four year undergraduate Bachelor of Education program at one Australian university are described and analysed in light of the debates surrounding pre-service primary teachers' literacy capabilities. The findings and subsequent discussion have implications for all literacy teacher educators concerned about the impact of standardised assessment practices on the professional future of teachers. (Contains 1 footnote.)

This meta-analysis summarizes research on the effects of a comprehensive, interactive web-based software (AXXX) on the development of reading competencies among kindergarteners and elementary students. Findings from seven randomized control trials and quasi-experimental studies undertaken in a variety of contexts across Canada, Australia and Kenya were reviewed and analyzed. Comparing the experimental groups that used AXXX to the control groups exposed to regular literacy instruction, the studies produced sixty-five independent effect sizes in six outcome categories, as defined by the National Reading Panel (NRP, 2000). The average effects were: (1) Phonics: g+ = 0.150, (k = 17, N = 914), p < 0.05; (2) Phonemic Awareness: g+ = 0.323, (k = 19, N = 1550), p < 0.001; (3) Reading Fluency: g+ = 0.082, (k = 5, N = 1522), p > 0.05 (ns); (4) Reading Comprehension: g+ = 0.087, (k = 5, N = 923), p > 0.05 (ns); •Listening Comprehension: g+ = 0.430, (k = 5, N = 846), p < 0.001; and (5) Vocabulary Knowledge: g+ = 0.031, (k = 14, N = 964), p > 0.05 (ns). The random effects model non-independent weighted overall average effect was g+ = 0.191 (k = 65). All but one of the average effect size distributions were homogeneous, suggesting that the observed effects are generally representative of the impact that AXXX may have on novice readers. The paper concludes with a discussion of AXXX classroom uses including implementation fidelity and offers the implications of the findings for future research and development.

Language and literacy skills are instrumental to success at school and early success with writing is a key factor in literacy development. By eight years of age, children spend up to half of their school day engaged in writing tasks suggesting that those who find learning to write difficult may be disadvantaged. The ability to hear and record sounds in sequence and writing vocabulary are two ingredients necessary for early writing success. In this study we examine the relationship between language skills at school entry and two outcome measures related to phonemic awareness and writing vocabulary at June and December for children (n = 60) in the first year of school. We analysed data collected using standardised instruments and investigated both bivariate and multivariate relationships. The findings suggest that oral language development is a strong predictor of children's ability to hear and record sounds in the first six months of school and writing vocabulary development in the first year. Although oral language development and phonemic awareness have been linked before in previous studies, we establish a clear relationship between these two areas with respect to early writing development. We conclude the paper by considering the study's implications for teachers, parents and researchers.

Substantial research has detailed the reading deficits experienced by children with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). Although phonological awareness (PA) is vital in reading development, little is known about PA in the DMD population. This pilot study describes the PA abilities of a group of five young children with DMD, comparing the results with those of a group of children with spinal muscular atrophy and with those of a group of typically developing children. The Preschool and Primary Inventory of Phonological Awareness was used to assess the PA skills of the participants. Results indicated that the children with DMD performed significantly poorer than the typically developing group on tests of Syllable Segmentation, Rhyme Awareness, Alliteration Awareness and Phoneme Isolation and significantly poorer than the spinal muscular atrophy group on Rhyme Awareness. The findings of this pilot study indicate that children with DMD may have an increased risk of having PA difficulties, thus requiring early PA training. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)

This paper reports on school readiness (SR) and its predictors in five- to six-year-old children from a prospective, longitudinal study of children from eight months to seven years (the Early Language in Victoria Study--ELVS). The ELVS children came from a representative sample of children recruited though the State Government Infant and Child Health Centres at the age of eight months who were studied at yearly intervals with a combination of parent surveys and face-to-face assessments. The study had a focus on language, pre-literacy and behavioural development. In pre-school and preparatory grade, teachers of the children completed a brief questionnaire rating SR characteristics, including cognitive, language and personal/social competencies. The data bank on these children provided a set of hypothesised child and family predictors of the SR score which were tested via factor analysis and regression analyses. Significant predictors of SR in the equation were evident from two years of age, and were all related to language and pre-literacy factors from two to six years. Twelve per cent of the children showed language impairment (LI) at five years according to their scores on the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals, 4th edition (CELF-4). In an additional analysis we found that these children were significantly lower on SR; they were also of lower social class compared with the remainder of the sample. The most influential factors in readiness for school were child language competencies and pre-literacy capacities, including phonemic awareness and letter knowledge. Preparation for school involving systematic emphasis on language and pre-literacy enrichment is recommended for all children before school entry and particularly for children at risk, including those coming from socio-economic disadvantage and those with delayed and impaired early language development. This addition to pre-school programmes can have lasting positive effects into pre-school and beyond, and prevent early school failure. (Contains 1 table.)

Recent Australian and international government reports refer to the importance of teacher knowledge in the sound structure of language and its relationship to beginning reading. In this study, a group of 162 pre-service teachers responded to a questionnaire including questions related to their attitudes towards using phonics instruction in the teaching of reading, their knowledge of phonemic awareness and how well prepared they felt to teach beginning reading. Results indicated that most pre-service teachers agreed that phonics was important in teaching reading. However, even though most teachers were able to correctly identify the concept of a phoneme, most could not transfer this knowledge to the counting of phonemes in words. Results also indicated that most pre-service teachers did not feel well prepared to teach beginning readers. It is suggested that these teachers need explicit training in understanding the sound structure of language in order to become effective teachers of reading. (Contains 3 tables and 3 notes.)

Two member onset consonant clusters with /s/ as the first member (#sC onsets) behave differently from other double onset consonant clusters in English. Phonological explanations of children's consonant cluster production have been posited to predict children's speech acquisition. The aim of this study was to consider the role of the Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP), homorganicity, headedness, and factorial typology in the explanation of productions of consonant clusters by children with phonological disorders. Thirty monolingual English-speaking children with phonological disorders produced words commencing with #sC: /s/+stop (/sT/), /s/+nasal (/sN/), /sl/, and /sw/. There was wide individual variation between participants. Overall, there was an increase in accuracy of consonant cluster production as the sonority indices of the second element of the cluster increased: there was significantly greater accuracy of /sl/ than /sN/ and significantly greater accuracy of /sN/ than /sT/. However, /sw/ targets only followed the SSP for phonologically accurate (but not phonetically accurate) productions. Correct renditions justified the binary grouping of the SSP-following vs SSP-violating separation. Homorganicity of the cluster was not a factor in determining relative accuracy of the targets. The percentage of correct renditions justified the /s/+[-continuant] vs /s/+[+continuant] binary separation. There were several counterexamples of predictions of the headedness approach. Thus, sonority and factorial typology were found to be useful in predicting /s/ consonant cluster acquisition of children with phonological disorders. (Contains 2 notes and 6 figures.)

Children (5 and 6 years old, n = 30) at familial risk of dyslexia received a home-based intervention that focused on phoneme awareness and letter knowledge in the year prior to formal reading instruction. The children were compared to a no-training at-risk control group (n = 27), which was selected a year earlier. After training, we found a small effect on a composite score of phoneme awareness (d = 0.29) and a large effect on receptive letter knowledge (d = 0.88). In first grade, however, this did not result in beneficial effects for the experimental group in word reading and spelling. Results are compared to three former intervention studies in The Netherlands and comparable studies from Denmark and Australia.

The assessment of phonological awareness (PA) can serve several purposes, including providing a useful diagnostic function in the management of low-progress readers. This paper discusses various aspects of phonological awareness that have implications for literacy teaching at three different points in children's school career: the point of school entry, where children first come to grips with alphabetic instruction; the first two or three years of formal schooling, during which PA becomes refined; and the subsequent years, during which phonological awareness and orthographic (spelling) awareness normally become intertwined. The discussion provides a critical exploration of issues relating to both the assessment of PA at these levels and the implications of the assessment results for low-progress readers.

The main aim of the Bridging the Gap project was to encourage Indigenous families to use a home book-reading program to minimise the disadvantage often experienced by their children when learning to read. The project was implemented in Western Sydney by Aboriginal Education Assistants (AEAs) from the Indigenous Catholic Education Unit within the Catholic Schools Office, Parramatta Diocese, NSW, with 22 children and their families in Terms 2 and 3 of the school year. The program used shared-book reading to help the children become actively involved in the reading process. At post-test, the children's mean reading age was higher than their mean chronological age, and there were increases in listening comprehension, phonemic awareness and receptive language. The project had a positive impact on the children's self-esteem, interest in books, experiences with books at home, and home-school links. The project also had a positive impact on the role of the AEAs within the Indigenous Education Unit and their support of the literacy needs of Indigenous children in the first year at school. (Contains 2 tables.)

This article first examines recent theoretical and empirical research on reading development and instruction in English-speaking countries. Then, a study is described that examines the effects of a synthetic phonics-emphasis Direct Instruction remedial reading program on the phonological processes of students, with teacher-identified serious reading problems, attending several Melbourne suburban schools. The 206 students (150 males and 56 females, mean age 9.7 years) were pre-tested on a battery of phonological tests, and assigned to the treatment condition or to a wait-list comparison group. The 134 students in the intervention group received the 65 lessons (in groups of up to 10) of the "Corrective Reading: Decoding" program from reading teachers at their schools. When compared with a similar cohort of 72 wait-list students from the same schools, the students made statistically significant and educationally large gains in the phonologically-related processes of word attack, phonemic awareness, and spelling, and statistically significant and moderately large gains in phonological recoding in lexical access, and phonological recoding in working memory. The study contributes to an understanding of the relationship between phonological processes and reading, and to an approach to efficiently assisting students whose underdeveloped decoding places their educational progress at risk. (Contains 5 figures and 3 tables.)

This study was an evaluation of a parent delivered, computer based beginning reading program with a group of 15 Kindergarten and Grade 1 students. Completing the "Funnix" program at home through a CD copy was expected to produce educationally and statistically significant improvements in phonemic awareness, letter-sound fluency, non-word decoding skills, and oral reading fluency, when compared to the outcomes for a similar group of 16 students in a wait list comparison group. Data were analysed using univariate analyses of covariance incorporating effect sizes. Statistically significant treatment effects were found for Kindergarten students in the intervention group on letter-sound fluency, oral reading fluency, non-word decoding, and phonemic awareness skills. Grade 1 students in the intervention group demonstrated significant improvement over time on letter-sound fluency, letter-name knowledge, non-word decoding and oral reading fluency; however, these improvements were not significantly greater than those for the Grade 1 comparison group. It was concluded that Kindergarten students gained the most benefits, and that at risk students may represent a fruitful target audience. (Contains 3 tables.)

Studied interrelationships among metacognitive abilities at the word level (phonemic awareness and metacognitive abilities in word identification), word identification skills, and reading comprehension for 55 year-5 Australian students (aged about 9-10 years). Metacognitive abilities at word level are related to reading comprehension directly and indirectly through word-identification skills. (SLD)

Discusses a study of the relationship of Australian elementary school students' word reading strategies to comprehension level, reading time, and phonemic awareness. Reports that performance in reading both irregular and nonsense words is a reasonably good predictor of subsequent performance. Recommends remedial training for students lacking decoding skills and adequate sight word vocabularies. (SG)

A program to teach young children about phonological structure was evaluated with 64 experimental group and 62 control group preschoolers in Australia. Results support the efficacy of the program and the principle that phonological awareness and letter knowledge are necessary but not sufficient for acquisition of the alphabetic principle. (SLD)

Results of 6 experiments with 109 Australian preschool children favor training in phoneme identity over segmentation as a component of initial reading instruction because it is easier to implement and its relation to alphabetic insight is stronger. Implications for the initial reading curriculum are discussed. (SLD)

Examines the word-reading strategies of a sample of second- and third-grade students in normal classrooms, focusing on the students' relative reliance on decoding versus sight-word associations. Suggests that lack of efficient decoding skills will begin to take a toll on reading comprehension by grade 3. (SR)