In this historical analysis, we examine the context of debates over the role of phonics in literacy and current debates about the science of reading, with a focus on the work and impact of the late literacy scholar Jeanne Chall. We open by briefly tracing the roots of the enduring debates from the 19th and 20th centuries, focusing on beginning…

The author reviews theory and research by Ehri and her colleagues to document how a scientific approach has been applied over the years to conduct controlled studies whose findings reveal how beginners learn to read words in and out of text. Words may be read by decoding letters into blended sounds or by predicting words from context, but the way…

The purpose of this review is to synthesize the existing research on decodability as a text characteristic examining how reading decodable text impacts students' reading performance and growth. The results are organized into two sections based on the research designs of the studies: (1) studies that described student performance when reading texts…

This study investigated the role of the amount, content, and implementation of reading instruction provided by 17 kindergarten teachers in eight "Reading First" elementary schools as it related to students' progress (n = 286 students) on early reading assessments of phonological awareness and letter naming-decoding fluency. Children's…

"Reading Mastery," one of several curriculum components that constitute the "Direct Instruction" curriculum from SRA/McGraw-Hill, is designed to provide systematic instruction in reading to students in grades K-6. "Reading Mastery," which can be used as an intervention program for struggling readers, as a supplement…

Proposes a Gestalt version of the word family approach to phonics instruction as a way of reducing the number of phonetic units a child must learn to gain total phonetic control of the English language. (TO)

Surveys how children develop their powers of word identification, and questions common assumptions about the utility of sight words. (TO)

Considers some research evidence, and extracts from it strategies and techniques that could profitably be used in the classroom. (HOD)

Finds in year 1, children showed effects of neighborhood size in high frequency words read in stories and in low frequency words read in lists and stories; in year 2, rimes from large neighborhoods were read more accurately than rimes from other neighborhoods; and by year 3, effects on low-frequency words continued, but not for high-frequency…

Presents the 38 most common phonograms (rhymes or word families) in rank order based on frequency. Notes that these 38 phonograms with added beginning consonants can make 654 different one-syllable words, and that teaching phonograms can be a definite help in teaching students to decode and thus to read and write better. (SR)

This study deals with the ability of the beginning reader to recognize the relationships between isolated letter sounds and the same sounds embedded in a word context. The subjects were 64 prekindergarten children attending six private preschools in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The subjects were all Caucasian and spoke a standard English…

Examines the importance of consistency of letter-sound patterns in beginning reading instruction. (HOD)

Reports on a longitudinal study which found that letter-naming speed was strongly associated with subsequent progress in reading for kindergarten children but not for second grade children. Suggests that code emphasis should not be overlooked in beginning reading. (ARH)

Reviews the literature on decodable text, instructional material containing words with phonically regular relationships that the reader has been taught. Synthesizes findings into a theoretical model that suggests a specific developmental juncture in which decodable text may be useful. Concludes that additional analyses of words in text are not…

Group training on segmentation-blending training forms (SB) in conjunction with strategies for decoding novel words (WD) was assessed in kindergarteners. Neither the WD or SB factor was found to significantly affect novel word decoding performance, although the results indicated that the sounding out SB form led to considerable success in word…