The development of literacy skills in kindergarten and early elementary-age children has become an unquestioned national priority in the education of students with and without disabilities. Coupled with the increasing importance of competency-based and proficiency-based testing in the United States, the development and evaluation of early literacy instructional programs, designed to meet the needs of all learners, is becoming increasingly important.

Historically, many children with disabilities have not profited from efforts in general education to ensure that all children learn to read in the first grade (Allington & McGill-Franzen, 1992; Johnston & Allington, 1991). The norm has been for children with disabilities to receive remedial reading instruction from special education professionals and paraprofessionals (Cunningham & Allington, 1999). In addition, reading specialists provide remedial services to children without disabilities who are considered at risk for school failure because of reading and writing difficulties. Children are often referred for special education placement when they do not make expected progress in the remedial programs provided by reading specialists.

One consequence of the dual system of services is that children who have the most difficult time learning to read and write (e.g., children with disabilities and/or at-risk of reading failure) receive reading instruction from teachers who may be inadequately prepared to meet their literacy learning needs. The type of reading instruction that children with disabilities often receive is narrow in focus and lacking in contextualized direct instruction and other types of instructional approaches which research suggests struggling readers need in order to learn to read and write (Allington, 1994).

The research regarding literacy instruction for children with disabilities is replete with studies of word identification instructional interventions, and it is generally accepted that children with disabilities can learn to read words taught in isolation (Barudin & Hourcade, 1990; Conners, 1992; McCormick & Becker, 1996; Rudolph, 1990). There is also evidence that young children with disabilities can develop concepts about print, knowledge of book structures, and other skills relevant to emergent literacy that are required for success with early literacy instruction (Katims, 1991; Kliewer, 1998). The question still remains, however, whether there are more efficient means by which young children with disabilities can develop the range of skills and understandings that children without disabilities acquire in early literacy instruction which would allow them to make the transition from emergent to conventional literacy with greater ease and fluency.