THE RELATIVE EFFECTIVENESS OF THREE APPROACHES TO BEGINNING READING WAS STUDIED. THE THREE APPROACHES WERE (1) PITMAN'S INITIAL TEACHING ALPHABET APPROACH (ITAA), (2) A MODIFIED LANGUAGE ARTS APPROACH WITH TRADITIONAL ORTHOGRAPHY (LAA), AND (3) A BASIC READER APPROACH (BRA). TWO INTERRELATED PROBLEMS WERE ALSO TREATED IN THIS STUDY--(1) THE…

This paper is a discursive presentation of results of an examination of comprehension instruction provided by widely used basal reader series. Focusing on selections in the first three grades of the 1976 Houghton Mifflin Reading Series, the analyses looked at the sorts of selections the students are asked to read, at the amount of text which they…

Basal readers are supposed to be easy for children to read, but sometimes their language is so unnatural that it's more confusing than helpful. (MKM)

Data from four of the Cooperative First Grade Studies (1964-1965) were reanalyzed for four first grade projects, (Fry, Hayes, Mazurkiewicz, and Tanyzer). These projects were selected because they compared the Initial Teaching Alphabet approach with traditional orthography-basal reader approaches. The focal point of this reanalysis was to study the…

Reader ability to predict text structure based on previous experiences with written language appears to be an important foundation for comprehension of reading materials. A pilot study was conducted to explore ways of comparing the story structure awareness of beginning readers. Story schema analyses of stories told by eight first-graders--four…

The Oakland County, Michigan, first-grade study of the effectiveness of three approaches to beginning reading was extended to the second and third grades to investigate differences in their effects on reading and related language development. Each of 11 research teams chose three classrooms which used either the Initial Teaching Alphabet approach…

This book, which is intended as a source book for classroom teachers and reading clinicians, focuses on: (1) recommended guidelines and patterns for teaching reading skills based upon the findings of current research in teaching and learning; (2) descriptions and evaluations of new approaches and materials for reading instruction; (3) descriptions…

THIS STUDY COMPARED THE EFFECTIVENESS OF A STANDARD BASAL READING PROGRAM WITH AN INDIVIDUALIZED READING PROGRAM WHICH INCORPORATED (1) A PROGRAM OF PHONETIC SKILLS, (2) WORD RECOGNITION, (3) COMPREHENSION SKILLS, AND (4) A PROGRAM OF STORY READING. TWELVE COMBINATION FIRST- AND SECOND-GRADE INDIVIDUALIZED READING CLASSES WERE PAIRED WITH 12 BASAL…

This book is designed for both preservice and inservice teachers of reading. The contents are divided into nine modules: (1) "Making Your Plans for Reading Instruction," (2) "Helping Children Develop Skill in Phonic Analysis," (3) "Using Principles of Learning to Teach Reading Effectively," (4) "Helping Children Develop Other Word Recognition…

The instruction provided by two beginning reading programs (the Ginn 720 and the Palo Alto 1973 reading programs) are analyzed and compared in this paper on the basis of such factors as phoneme-grapheme correspondence and phonics instruction, sight word learning, and the development of reading comprehension. The comparison focuses primarily on the…

During the first year of the program, 27 individual projects enrolling approximately 20,000 first-grade pupils were involved. Fifteen of these projects participated in a second-grade followup study. Some conclusions based on an analysis of data are (1) that prereading knowledge of letter names is the best single predictor of reading achievement in…

In this collection, papers with similar topics are grouped together. Topics include: remedial reading teachers, primary assessment, preprimary reading, reading comprehension, reading in the content areas, integrating reading with subject matter, teaching reading through the materials of social studies, assessment of attitude toward reading, human…

THE READING INSTRUCTION PROGRAM OF THE DENVER PUBLIC SCHOOLS IS SUMMARIZED. OBJECTIVES INCLUDE TEACHING WORD RECOGNITION SKILLS, DEVELOPING THE HABIT OF READING, AND DEVELOPING READING SPEED AND EFFICIENCY. IN ADDITION TO DEFINING THE OBJECTIVES AND BASIC DIMENSIONS OF THE ELEMENTARY READING PROGRAM, THIS REPORT ALSO DISCUSSES THE FOUR COMPONENT…

This book is intended for preservice and inservice training of teachers of elementary reading. The contents discuss: current emphases in reading instruction and research supporting each of the approaches; the stages of reading development as well as the various materials and activities used for teaching each level; the basic reading program,…