The use of metacognitive strategies helps students to “think about their thinking” before, during, and after they read.

The purpose of the present study was to examine the efficacy of the multisensory teaching approach to improve reading skills at the firstgrade level. The control group was taught by the Houghton-Mifflin Basal Reading Program while the treatment group was taught by the Language Basics: Elementary, which incorporates the OrtonGillingham-based Alphabetic Phonics Method. The results showed that the treatment group made statistically significant gains in phonological awareness, decoding, and reading comprehension while the control group made gains only on reading comprehension.

Informed instruction that adjusts content, materials, or intensity to student needs is critical for students with learning disabilities. Informed literacy instruction requires teachers to have thorough knowledge of literacy-related content, which includes phonemes, syllables, and morphemes. The current study investigated whether teachers who possess this knowledge are better able to identify student needs and appropriate instructional spelling activities than teachers who do not possess this knowledge. In Study 1, 36 preservice teachers and 38 inservice teachers completed measures to evaluate their literacy-related content knowledge and ability to identify appropriate spelling activities. Overall, the inservice teachers demonstrated greater knowledge and were better able to identify appropriate instructional activities than the preservice teachers. In Study 2, the knowledge of 196 inservice teachers completing varying numbers of hours of professional development was analyzed to determine the effects of professional development on literacy-related content knowledge and ability to identify appropriate activities. Generally, greater teacher knowledge and identification of appropiate activities were related to the number of hours of professional development completed.

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The purpose of the present study was to explore the role of phonology, morphology and orthography in predicting the spelling performance in English-speaking and Russian-speaking children. Tests that tap phonology, morphology and orthography were administered to students in grades 4 and 6 in the USA and Russia. Multiple regression analyses showed that phonology and morphology contributed more for spelling of English words while orthography and morphology contributed more to the spelling of Russian words. The results are explained in terms of the orthographic nature of English and Russian languages as well as the instructional practices and the importance of morphology in spelling in both the languages.