Building a Scientific Base for Practice Early literacy reports Pearson and Hiebert (2011) National reports in literacy: Building a scientific base for practice and policy. Educational Researcher, 39(4) pp

Precursor literacy skills  Medium to large correlation with later conventional literacy skills

Don’t confuse correlation and causation  Alphabet knowledge (knowledge of letters and sounds associated with printed letters)  Phonological awareness (manipulating sounds)

 Rapid automatic naming (RAN) of letters of digits  RAN of objects or colors  Writing or writing name  Phonological memory

Early Literacy Skills Concepts about print Print knowledge Reading readiness Oral language Visual processing  Moderate correlations

Key Questions  What does quality instruction in these areas look like?  Is letter naming enough?  Should the focus be on reading rather than the prerequisite skills?

How did the students in the top third of achievement range get to know what they know?  Magnetic letters  Writing words  Singing alliterative songs  Playing rhyming games  Writing messages  Acquire letter names  Grasp alphabetic principles  Learn words

 “A long standing observation that goes back to at least the 1940s suggest one possible reason that strong predictors like letter naming are really proxies for a host of other causative variables with which letter naming scores are naturally correlated …” Pearson and Hiebert 2011, Educational Researcher 39(4) p. 293.