ABSTRACT
In the ongoing effort to understand and improve the literacy skills of American children, several important insights have begun to focus and shape theoretical and empirical work. First, it is becoming increasingly evident that meaningful individual differences in important language, cognitive, literacy, and social skills emerge before children begin formal schooling in kindergarten or first grade (Morrison, Bachman, & Connor, 2005; Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000). Second, this early variability is influenced by a number of factors in the child, family, preschool, and larger socio-cultural context [National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care Research Network (NICHD-ECCRN), 2004]. Third, these contributing influences do not operate in isolation, but interact with each other in complex ways to shape children's trajectories (Connor, Son, Hindman, & Morrison, 2005). Fourth, recent work has discovered that the early schooling experiences of American children are highly variable, in some cases exacerbating the degree of difference found among children prior to school entry (NICHD-ECCRN, 2002; Pianta, Paro, Payne, Cox, & Bradley, 2002). Finally, longitudinal work has revealed the lasting effect of early experiences on reading acquisition, grades earned, and dropout rates (Entwisle, Alexander, & Olson, 2005; Juel & Minden-Cupp, 2000). These trends have directed attention to the importance of individual child variability in programming effective reading instruction during the early elementary school years.
