Phonological awareness and phonics instruction are necessary components of beginning reading instruction and require teachers to have specialized content, pedagogical, and pedagogical content knowledge. This includes knowledge about language structures; reading components, processes, and development; and effective instructional practices. In this…

An examination and evaluation of the papers presented at the Pittsburgh conference on the theory and practice of beginning reading instruction shows that there is little interaction between basic research in reading and applied work on reading instruction. Classroom instruction relies more on intuition and experience than on laboratory research,…

Evaluative comments from one participant in the June 1976 Pittsburgh conference on the theory and practice of beginning reading are presented in this paper. Discussion centers on curriculum analyses, testing practices, teaching practices, units of analysis that are required for reading research, learning characteristics, stages of reading…