The "back to basics" movement raises questions regarding the nature of reading that is assumed in instruction and testing. Of the three definitions of reading (decoding, meaning-from-page, and intellectual processes) the latter view, which sees reading as a broad range of perceptual, associative, and cognitive elements, is preferred. The…

This research review on basic reading skills begins with an historical perspective on reading methods, followed by an overview of reading instruction methods for the general population. Research findings are presented on several instructional methods, including phonetic, linguistic, artificial orthography, basal reading, and language experience…

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…