Rhein, D: Patterns in Beginning Readers

Learning to read is the most critical skillmastered in the first few years of school and formsthe basis for formal education. For years, parentsand 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 arestruggling readers, and some have exploredcharacteristics of good readers, few haveinvestigated beginning readers across cognitive andliteracy domains based on literacy grouping. Thisbook is a report of one such study where first andsecond grade students' skills were measured:phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming(RAN), visual processing speed, memory and semanticknowledge skills were correlated with measures ofdecoding, spelling, and reading fluency. The results,which were analyzed by literacy ability grouping,suggest different interventions for literacy groupsare indicated, making this work of interest toreading specialists, special educators,speech-language pathologists, school psychologistsand researchers of reading and writing development.