In this study, students and their teachers participated in a layered approach to reading intervention in kindergarten through third grade that included professional development for teachers in scientifically based reading instruction, ongoing measurement of reading progress, and additional small-group or individual instruction for students whose progress was insufficient to maintain grade-level reading achievement. Reading outcomes were compared with historical control groups of students in the same schools. The findings revealed overall improvements in reading, improved reading for students who began the study in high-risk categories, and decreases in the incidence of reading disability at the end of third grade. Implications for scaling up are discussed.

This study measured the effects of increasing levels of intervention in reading for a cohort of children in Grades K through 3 to determine whether the severity of reading disability (RD) could be significantly reduced in the catchment schools. Tier 1 consisted of professional development for teachers of reading. The focus of this study is on additional instruction that was provided as early as kindergarten for children whose achievement fell below average. Tier 2 intervention consisted of small-group reading instruction 3 times per week, and Tier 3 of daily instruction delivered individually or in groups of two. A comparison of the reading achievement of third-grade children who were at risk in kindergarten showed moderate to large differences favoring children in the tiered interventions in decoding, word identification, fluency, and reading comprehension.

Many children with Down syndrome demonstrate deficits in phonological awareness, a prerequisite to learning to read in an alphabetic language. The purpose of this study was to determine whether adapting a commercially available phonological awareness program to better align with characteristics associated with the behavioral phenotype of Down syndrome would increase children's learning of phonological awareness, letter sounds, and words. Five children with Down syndrome, ages 6 to 8 years, participated in a multiple baseline across participants single case design experiment in which response to an adapted phonological awareness intervention was compared with response to the nonadapted program. Results indicate a functional relation between the adapted program and phonological awareness. Suggestions for future research and implications for practice are provided.

In his May 1, 1971, presidential address to the Society for Pediatric Research, William L. Nyhan coined the term "behavioral phenotype" (Nyhan, 1972). His plan for the talk was to discuss his observations that children who shared a genetic syndrome (i.e., Cornelia de Lange and Lesch-Nyhan syndromes) exhibited common patterns of atypical behaviors. Nyhan presumed these behaviors to be genetically determined and believed that additional research could both lead to improvements in the "diagnosis and management" of individuals with specific syndromes and "yield information of fundamental biologic importance" (p. 1). Nearly a quarter of a century later, Nyhan described the first published text focused on behavioral phenotypes (Nyhan, 1995) as "a coming of age for the field" (p. x). He hoped the volume would stimulate additional research that would deepen understandings of the mechanisms through which genes influence behavior and lead to more effective treatments for affected individuals. Hodapp and Ricci (2002), writing 7 years later in a followup volume, lauded the field's progress toward understanding how different genetic intellectual disability (ID) disorders could differentially effect behavior; however, they described the failure of translating this knowledge into educational practice as "the unrealized connection" (p. 137). Since then, several researchers (Fidler, 2005; Lemons & Fuchs, 2010) have suggested that behavioral phenotypes could be used to guide the development of interventions targeted toward groups of individuals with a common genetic syndrome. Although this line of work has several challenges (e.g., variability of profiles within a syndrome, characteristics shared across syndromes; Dykens, 1995; Reilly, 2012), pursuing Nyhan's goal to improve intervention for individuals with a shared genetic syndrome has potential to enhance outcomes. Purpose The purpose of this study was to evaluate the feasibility and potential efficacy of an early reading intervention targeting 618941F OAXXX10.

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