Syntheses of reading research conducted by the National Research Council (1998) and more recently by the Congressionally-Commissioned National Reading Panel (2000) provide ample evidence of the skills, experience, and knowledge children need to become successful readers in an alphabetic writing system. This research makes clear that children must…

Suggesting that a missing link between effective practices and their sustained implementation is the "host environment" into which practices, programs, procedures, and pedagogy are translated, this bulletin describes the need for prevention and intervention models in beginning reading that are anchored to the school as the host environment. The…

This issue presents eight essays all on the theme of how young children can become strong and successful lifelong readers. "Seeking Common Ground" (Lee Sherman) reviews the debate over how best to teach young children to read. "In the Beginning" (Catherine Paglin) suggests that by reading aloud to young children and filling their world with print,…

This document describes a literacy project in rural Ecuador using a modified version of Sylvia Ashton Warner's language experience approach. This method allows learners to approach written culture on their own terms by learning words important to their life, then transferring these works to sentences and stories. The approach reduces the rural…