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Equipping elementary (i.e., grades K–5) teachers with adequate content and pedagogical knowledge to promote effective reading instruction based on the science of reading is a crucial piece of the reading education puzzle. We reviewed 20 empirical studies to examine the impact of teacher preparation and training programs on elementary teachers’ knowledge of the science of reading, focusing on the foundational pillars of reading instruction, namely, phonological and phonemic awareness, phonics, and morphological awareness, as well as student outcomes in reading. We also identified program characteristics that promoted positive growth in teacher knowledge. Generally, findings support the effectiveness of training and preparation programs in increasing elementary teachers’ knowledge of foundational constructs. Training in which teachers have the opportunity to apply their learned knowledge and skills under expert guidance produced the largest growth in teacher knowledge. Implications of findings are discussed.

As posited by the simple view of reading, listening comprehension and decoding are necessary for reading comprehension. Thus, the present study examined subcomponents of listening comprehension (i.e., vocabulary, morphology, and syntax) and their contributions to reading comprehension. The novel aspect of this study is that rather than examining listening comprehension as a global variable, the unique and shared variance of subcomponents of listening comprehension were examined in relation to English reading comprehension. Second language learners of English from Spanish-speaking backgrounds between the ages of 9 and 13 years completed tasks assessing vocabulary, morphological awareness, syntactic knowledge, word reading, and reading comprehension in English. As expected, regression analyses showed that all three subcomponents of listening comprehension contributed to reading comprehension. Additionally, commonality analyses showed that morphological awareness and syntactic knowledge shared significant amounts of variance with vocabulary. The interrelations among these variables have implications for assessment and intervention.

This study examined the sources of reading comprehension difficulties in English language learners (ELLs). The characteristics of ELL poor comprehenders were compared to their English as a first language (EL1) peers. Participants included 124 ELLs who spoke Chinese as an L1 and 79 EL1 students. Using a regression technique based on age, non-verbal reasoning, word reading accuracy, and word reading fluency, three types of comprehenders (poor, average, and good) were identified within each language group. The groups were then compared on measures of oral language skills (vocabulary breadth, vocabulary depth, and listening comprehension), metalinguistic skills (morphological awareness and syntactic awareness), working memory, and higher-level processing skills (inference, conjunction use, and comprehension monitoring). ELL poor comprehenders had significantly lower scores than ELL average and good comprehenders on vocabulary breadth, listening comprehension, and morphological awareness, whereas there were no significant differences between the average and good comprehender groups on these skills. Additionally, both ELL poor and average comprehenders had lower scores than ELL good comprehenders on all three higher-level skills. Finally, results showed that ELL poor comprehenders scored lower than EL1 poor comprehenders on vocabulary breadth, listening comprehension, and morphological awareness, but the two groups did not differ on higher-level skills. Theoretical and educational implications for the identification and instruction of ELL poor comprehenders are discussed.

Chinese morphological awareness is conceptualized as a multidimensional construct but there is a lack of understanding of how its dimensions are related. Latent change score modeling was used to examine the bivariate relationships of two facets of oral morphological awareness, namely morpheme and structure awareness in Chinese children in grades one through three. Two hundred and three children in China completed morpheme (homonym awareness) and structure awareness (lexical compounding) tasks across the three grades (M = 6.66, SD = .30 at the first time point). Results indicated that growth in structure awareness was predicted in part by previous levels of morpheme awareness, suggesting that morpheme awareness leads the growth of structure awareness. Educational implications are discussed.

Oral reading fluency (ORF) deficits are a hallmark of reading difficulties. The impact of fluency struggles extends beyond word-level difficulties to include deficits in reading comprehension. Sixteen empirical studies conducted in 2000–2019 that examined ORF interventions among elementary students identified as having reading difficulties were reviewed to identify the characteristics (e.g., instructional variables, group size, type of interventionist) of effective ORF interventions and their impact on English oral reading fluency and reading comprehension outcomes. The systematic review revealed that interventions reported centered around repeated reading procedures (86.5%). Across the 16 studies, outcomes for oral reading fluency varied widely and most focused on speed and rate aspects rather than prosody. Effect sizes for rate and accuracy measures ranged from negligible to large (i.e., 0.01 to 1.18) and three studies found large effects for prosody outcomes. Effect sizes for reading comprehension ranged between non-significant and large significant effects. Findings support the use of repeated reading of text to build up ORF of students with reading difficulties. Interventions that were found to be most effective were those that were conducted one-on-one with a trained model of fluent word reading and accuracy. Findings also point to three gaps in our understanding: (1) the efficacy of interventions other than repeated reading, (2) effects of ORF interventions on prosody outcomes, and (3) sustainability of outcomes.

How the construct of vocabulary is defined remains unclear although multiple theories have been put forth. In light of the lack of empirical work investigating the dimensionality of vocabulary knowledge in Chinese, the present study investigated the factor structure of Chinese print vocabulary in a sample of 111 Taiwanese children in Grades 1 and 2. Participants completed six written measures designed to assess breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge in receptive or expressive formats. Three hypothesized models corresponding to (1) a unidimensional model on which all six measures loaded onto, (2) a 2-factor model comprising breadth and depth dimensions, and (3) a 2-factor model consisting of receptive and expressive dimensions, were compared using confirmatory factor analyses. Results indicated that the unidimensional model was preferred over two dimensional models, indicating that it is useful to view Chinese vocabulary as a holistic construct rather than as comprising separable dimensions among young Taiwanese children.

This study evaluates the extent to which syntactic awareness contributes to reading comprehension in English–French bilinguals, considering both the potential for a direct relation, as well as an indirect one, through word reading. Participants were 146 first-grade students enrolled in early French immersion programs in Canada. While the children received all school instruction in French, English was their stronger language and the language of the broader community. Given this dual language context, we examined relations from syntactic awareness in each of English and French to children’s French reading comprehension. Path analyses showed that within French, the language of school instruction, syntactic awareness contributed to reading comprehension indirectly through word reading. The findings suggest that novice readers rely more heavily on basic reading skills, such as word reading, to comprehend texts and syntactic awareness facilitates reading comprehension through word reading. Across the two languages, English syntactic awareness contributed both directly to French reading comprehension and indirectly through French word reading. The cross-language findings suggest that English syntactic awareness is related to French to support French reading comprehension. These findings help fill in a developmental picture in early bilinguals, particularly given studies of older, more skilled monolingual readers showing evidence for solely a direct relation between syntactic awareness and reading comprehension.

The study examined the role of phonological awareness and morphological awareness in concurrent and subsequent oral vocabulary among Chinese–English bilingual children who learned Chinese as their heritage language and English as their societal language. Ninety-one Chinese–English bilingual children in kindergarten and Grade 1 who were recruited from Chinese heritage language classes in Canada, participated in the study. They were tested twice, 1 year apart, on a battery of cognitive and literacy measures in Chinese and English. The results indicated that for oral vocabulary, morphological awareness was the only concurrent predictor in both languages. English morphological awareness made a direct contribution to English vocabulary measured a year later. By contrast, the contribution of morphological awareness to vocabulary in Chinese at Time 2 was indirect and mediated by vocabulary at Time 1. Phonological awareness did not make a significant contribution to vocabulary at Times 1 or 2 in either language. Our results highlight the importance of morphological awareness in oral vocabulary for children learning Chinese and English.

The present study investigated the role of syntactic awareness in reading comprehension among English–French bilinguals learning French as an additional language in Canadian French immersion programs. We examined the direct effect of French syntactic awareness on French reading comprehension as well as the indirect effects mediated through French word reading and French vocabulary. We further examined the extent to which English syntactic awareness contributed to French reading comprehension through cross-language transfer, again considering both the direct effect and the indirect effects through French word reading and French vocabulary. Mediation analyses indicated that, within French, the relationship between French syntactic awareness and French reading comprehension was fully mediated by both French word reading and French vocabulary. In contrast, English syntactic awareness contributed directly to French reading comprehension. Finally, French word reading partially mediated the relationship between English syntactic awareness and French reading comprehension. Our study suggests that children who learn French as an additional language rely on word reading and vocabulary, in addition to French syntactic awareness, to comprehend French texts. Given that English is French immersion children’s stronger language, they use English syntactic awareness to support French reading comprehension both directly and indirectly through French word reading.