My research focused on literacy development in children through fourth grade and followed an earlier study (Juel, Griffith, & Gough, 1986). The Simple View of reading and writing received support in this earlier study and was examined in my current research. Of particular concern were these questions: Do the same children remain poor readers year after year? Do the same children remain poor writers year after year? What skills do the poor readers lack? What skills do the poor writers lack? What factors seem to keep poor readers from improving? What factors seem to keep poor writers from improving? The probability that a child would remain a poor reader at the end of fourth grade if the child was a poor reader at the end of first grade was .88. Early writing skill did not predict later writing skill as well as early reading ability predicted later reading ability. Children who became poor readers entered first grade with little phonemic awareness. By the end of fourth grade, the poor readers had still not achieved the level of decoding skill that the good readers had achieved at the beginning of second grade. Good readers read considerably more than the poor readers both in and out of school, which appeared to contribute to the good readers' growth in some reading and writing skills (e.g., in ideas for stories). Poor readers tended to become poor writers. The Simple View received support in accounting for reading and writing development through fourth grade.This study examined the development of literacy in one elementary school with a large minority, low socioeconomic status population. The reading and writing development of 54 children was followed as they progressed from first through fourth grade. This in-depth examination of literacy acquisition in a microcosm of at-risk children attempted to answer the following questions: Do the same children remain poor readers year after year? Do the same children remain poor writers year after year? What skills do the poor readers lack? What skills do the poor writers lack? What factors seem to keep poor readers from improving? What factors seem to keep poor writers from improving?

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In functional neuroimaging studies, individuals with dyslexia frequently exhibit both hypoactivation, often in the left parietotemporal cortex, and hyperactivation, often in the left inferior frontal cortex, but there has been no evidence to suggest how to interpret the differential relations of hypoactivation and hyperactivation to dyslexia. To address this question, we measured brain activation by functional MRI during visual word rhyme judgment compared with visual cross-hair fixation rest, and we measured gray matter morphology by voxel-based morphometry in dyslexic adolescents in comparison with (i) an age-matched group, and (ii) a readingmatched group younger than the dyslexic group but equal to the dyslexic group in reading performance. Relative to the agematched group (n ‫؍‬ 19; mean 14.4 years), the dyslexic group (n ‫؍‬ 19; mean 14.4 years) exhibited hypoactivation in left parietal and bilateral fusiform cortices and hyperactivation in left inferior and middle frontal gyri, caudate, and thalamus. Relative to the readingmatched group (n ‫؍‬ 12; mean 9.8 years), the dyslexic group (n ‫؍‬ 12; mean 14.5 years) also exhibited hypoactivation in left parietal and fusiform regions but equal activation in all four areas that had exhibited hyperactivation relative to age-matched controls as well. In regions that exhibited atypical activation in the dyslexic group, only the left parietal region exhibited reduced gray matter volume relative to both control groups. Thus, areas of hyperactivation in dyslexia reflected processes related to the level of current reading ability independent of dyslexia. In contrast, areas of hypoactivation in dyslexia reflected functional atypicalities related to dyslexia itself, independent of current reading ability, and related to atypical brain morphology in dyslexia.inferior frontal region ͉ inferior parietal lobule ͉ voxel-based morphometry ͉ functional MRI ͉ compensation D yslexia is a developmental condition characterized by low reading achievement in people who otherwise have cognitive abilities, motivation, and education necessary for accurate and fluent reading (1). Dyslexia, estimated to affect 5-17% of children and 80% of all individuals with a learning disability (2, 3), is characterized by inaccurate and/or slow, effortful reading that typically originates with weakness in the phonological processing of language (4-8).The brain basis of dyslexia has been examined by functional and structural neuroimaging. Functional imaging studies regularly report hypoactivation in dyslexia, especially in the left parietotemporal region, which may support the mapping of phonology onto orthography, and in the left fusiform region, which may support skilled orthographic decoding (9-12). Hyperactivation in dyslexia has also been observed, most frequently in left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) (13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19). Hyperactivation in left IFG, a region associated with articulation and naming (20), may reflect compensatory processes engaged by dyslexic individuals attempting to overcome...

I n preparing the grant proposal for the Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement (CIERA), we asked teachers and administrators what research questions they most needed answered in order to improve primary-grade reading instruction. They raised more questions about how to teach children to read words than any other area in early reading. They expressed concern over which, and how many, strategies for word recognition teachers should model for firstgrade children. Should teachers, for example, model either how to sound out unknown words or how to make an analogy to a key word on a word wall? Should teachers focus on what makes sense? Should they model some combination of these (and other) strategies? Orand under what conditions-should they simply tell a child an unknown word? Should they focus on the visual array of letters by spelling the word? Whatever instructional strategies were or were not emphasized, they wanted to know which unit in the text or word should be the main focus. Should they focus on the meaning of the text to puzzle out an unknown word? Should they focus on the whole word (e.g., stand), little words in big ones (e.g., the and in stand), the onset and rime (e.g., /st/ and /and/), or individual letter-sounds in words (e.g., /s/, /t/, /a/, /n/, /d/)? They wanted answers to the nittygritty questions involved in word recognition instruction.While practitioners raised more questions about how to teach word recognition than other areas in reading instruction, they expressed concern about the amount of time spent on word recognition in their total language arts programs. They were very concerned about the development of both reading and writing and the development of rich vocabularies and world knowledge with which to comprehend decoded texts.Our approach to the above questions and issues was to examine how reading instruction worked in the complexity of real classrooms. Although there were key elements of instruction we wanted to observe, we did not want to ignore the context in which this instruction occurred. We reasoned that certain instructional procedures might be more effective if they were delivered both in particular ways and to specific groups of children. Onset and rime instruction, for example, might be most effective for children with some decoding skill and some degree of phonological awareness, while sequential letter-by-letter decoding might be more effective for children with less early literacy knowledge (Bruck & Treiman, 1992;Ehri & Robbins, 1992; Vandervelden & Siegel, 1995). Further, the form of instruction might alter its effectiveness. That is, whether instruction was delivered to large or small instructional groups, the character of those groups, the types of materials, and the form of interactions-among other factors-were all likely to influence the effectiveness 459The question of which, and how many, word-recognition strategies should be taught to first-grade children has rarely been explored within the context of real classrooms. In this study, we analyzed wo...

S Juel (1991) reported that university student‐athletes who were poor readers seemed to be effective tutors of first‐grade children who were poor readers. The current study explored factors that may account for successful tutoring outcomes when poor readers tutor other poor readers. The form and content of tutoring in 30 tutoring dyads was closely examined. To determine what factors contributed to successful outcomes in individual dyads, tutoring sessions over a school year were tape‐recorded and videotaped. Tapes were analyzed into type of verbal interactions (i.e., scaffolded or modeled processes) and time spent engaged in seven tutoring activities (e.g., reading literature, writing, letter‐sound instruction). Multiple measures of reading, writing, and attitude towards school were administered at the beginning and end of the school year both to the children and to the older poor reader tutors (who also engaged in additional reading and writing activities outside of tutoring), and to control groups. Both tutors and children made significantly greater literacy growth than their respective control groups. Two activities were found to be particularly important in successful dyads: (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 interactions were found to be particularly important: (a) scaffolding of reading and writing, and (b) modeling of how to read and spell unknown words. A synergistic relationship was found to exist between the form and content of instruction. Juel (1991) reportó que atletas universitarios que eran malos lectores parecieron desempeñarse como tutores efectivos de niños de primer grado que tenían dificultades de lectura. El presente estudio exploró factores que podrían dar cuenta de los resultados exitosos cuando malos lectores son tutores de otros malos lectores. Se examinó cuidadosamente la forma y el contenido de las tutorías en treinta díadas. Para determinar qué factores contribuyeron a los resutados exitosos en díadas individuales, se hicieron grabaciones de audio y video de sesiones de tutoría durante un año escolar. Las grabaciones se analizaron en tipo de interacción verbal (procesos de andamiaje o modelado) y tiempo invertido en siete actividades de tutoría (por ej., leer literatura, escribir, enseñar relaciones letrasonido). Se administraron muchas medidas de lectura, escritura y actitudes hacia la escuela al comienzo y al final del año escolar, tanto a los pequeños como a los tutores (quienes también realizaron actividades adicionales de lectura y escritura) y a grupos de control. Tanto los tutores como los pequeños hicieron significativamente más progresos en lectoescritura que sus respectivos grupos de control. Se halló que dos actividades eran particularmente importantes en las díadas exitosas: (a) el uso de textos que gradual y repetitivamente introducían vocabulario de alta frecue...