Patterns in Beginning Readers

Learning to read is the most critical skill§mastered in the first few years of school and forms§the basis for formal education. For years, parents§and educators have recognized vast variation; while §a few children read easily, and a few find the §process extremely difficult, the vast majority fall §somewhere in between. While many researchers have §explored the characteristics of children who are§struggling readers, and some have explored§characteristics of good readers, few have§investigated beginning readers across cognitive and§literacy domains based on literacy grouping. This§book is a report of one such study where first and§second grade students skills were measured:§phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming§(RAN), visual processing speed, memory and semantic§knowledge skills were correlated with measures of§decoding, spelling, and reading fluency. The results,§which were analyzed by literacy ability grouping,§suggest different interventions for literacy groups§are indicated, making this work of interest to§reading specialists, special educators,§speech-language pathologists, school psychologists§and researchers of reading and writing development.