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The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of whole language instruction in first-grade classrooms. Three whole language classrooms were compared with three traditional classrooms. Data were collected for end-of-the-year achievement in reading comprehension, vocabulary, phonemic awareness, decoding, spelling, and writing. There were no significant differences between the two instructional programs on any of the variables. The study also examined whether there would be differences between whole language and traditional instruction in end-of-the-year reading, writing, and spelling achievement for children with varying levels of incoming phonemic awareness, reading, and writing ability. Results suggested that neither program was more likely to close gaps between children high and low in these incoming abilities.

The informal reading inventory is a diagnostic instrument used by learning disability specialists, reading teachers, and classroom teachers to identify an appropriate reading grade level placement for students, and to identify strengths and weaknesses in word recognition and comprehension. In recent years, a number of studies have examined its validity and reliability. This article gives a comprehensive review of this research. Based on the findings of this review, suggestions of ways the teacher can improve the validity and reliability of existing informal reading inventories are provided, along with suggestions for evaluating reliability and validity of newly published IRI's.

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