Early reading for low-SES minority language children: an attempt to 'catch them before they fall'

Minority language and low socioeconomic status (SES) students are at high risk for language and learning disabilities. In an attempt to 'catch them before they fall', an early reading project was initiated in four kindergarten classes, in a low-SES bilingual school (English/French as a second language), where minority language children form a majority. The project included: (1) teaching reading and writing to kindergarten students, and outcome research: individual pre- and post-treatment assessment using a computer software to measure phonological processing and decoding skills; (2) reading testing of grade 1 students, graduates of traditional kindergartens with no explicit reading instruction programs. Statistical analyses of the pre- and post-tests showed that in only 9 weeks the kindergarten students were able to learn phonological skills critical to the reading process. By contrast, a significant number of the grade 1 students, all graduates of a traditional kindergarten, showed serious reading lags on a group reading test, indicating that early reading instruction is justifiable for this high-risk student population.