The two major goals of this paper are to describe a 5-year research and development project that led to the creation of a decoding program for poor readers in Grades 1–8 and to report the results of our research along the way. Unlike most research and development projects, research did not simply follow program development and assess its effectiveness. Instead, action research was used as a means of developing the program and program development led to modifications in the research as well. Thus, research and development had a reciprocal relationship and evolved together. The word identification program that eventually took shape emphasized phonemic awareness and decoding by analogy. Our findings were consistent with the conclusion that the word identification program enabled students to become better decoders and allowed them to make small gains in spelling, vocabulary, and comprehension.
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