Learning to read and write: A longitudinal study of 54 children from first through fourth grades.

Abstract

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?

Developing Language Literacy in the Educational Scene

“…Typically, average children are mature enough to be able to learn decoding letters and the words written by them before they go to school. This phenomenon also underlines the early reading theory (Stanovich, 1986;Juel, 1988) discussed above. The experiences in most European countries suggest that the poor results in reading comprehension do not stem from the pupils' lack of phonological awareness, but from their poor reading performance.…”

“…There is strong and persuasive evidence that children who get off to a slow start rarely become strong readers (Stanovich, 1986). Early learning of the code leads to wider reading habits both in and out of school (Juel, 1988)." 9 It can be added that although Krashen's silent period hypothesis (cf.…”

Functional characteristics of developmental dyslexia in left-hemispheric posterior brain regions predate reading onset

“…Individuals with DD are often unable to access the underlying sound structures of words, creating a difficulty in mapping sounds to written language (15)(16)(17)(18). Phonological processing skills have been found to be a key predictor of later reading ability in preschool and elementary schoolaged children (19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31). In addition to phonological processing deficits, a range of other linguistic impairments have been observed in infants and prereading children who later exhibit weak reading scores, including speech perception (23,26), syntax production, and comprehension (32)(33)(34)(35), language comprehension (26), receptive vocabulary (22,34), and rapid automatized naming abilities (23,24,34,(36)(37)(38).…”

Evaluating the impact of different early literacy interventions on low-income Costa Rican kindergarteners

“…Research carried out in several countries suggests that children who begin first grade as poor readers are more likely to continue to struggle with reading -and therefore the rest of their academic subjects -throughout their academic careers (Clay, 1991;Cunningham & Stanovich, 1997;Ferreiro & Teberosky, 1982;Juel, 1988;Sanford, 2000). In addition, children from low-income families are disproportionately more likely to struggle with reading throughout their schooling (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998).…”