The experiment studied the differential effectiveness of two methods of blending instruction on the ability of prereaders to decode synthetic words. Findings indicated the superiority of auditory-visual training over auditory, with both methods significantly superior to practice on sound-letter association (the control group task). (RC)

Outlines recent and past debates on literacy pedagogy. Contends that more students are more highly literate today than ever before. Describes the following literacy pedagogy "ages": the age of reading as decoding; the age of reading as meaning making; the age of reading-writing connections; and the age of reading for social purpose.…

A teaching strategy that taps students' comprehension strengths and reduces the anxieties that often result from reading disability is explained. The strategy provides students with extensive story understanding before independent reading and uses story understanding to help students identify unknown words. (Author/DB)

This paper offers a rationale for integrating phonics with reading instruction for students with reading disabilities. It then suggests that direct teaching of sounds be provided by constructing "soundsheets" with rows of sound/letter combinations taken directly from the text the child will read after practicing the sounds. (JDD)

The study with 26 learning disabled students (7- to 10-years old) receiving a direct reading instruction program found that phonological ability was related to progress in word attack skills and that syntactic ability was related to improvement in comprehension skills. (DB)

Surveys teachers after using CHAR-L Intensive Phonics at two psycho-educational centers located in the southeastern United States for students with severe emotional disturbances. Indicates positive teacher perception of training for program implementation, actual training time, and comfort level in teaching. Notes strong administrative support in…

What do first-grade teachers do and say to scaffold novice readers? To answer that question, this teacher researcher videotaped her own and others' scaffolding behaviors. Analysis of the video transcripts reveals valuable information that can support teachers or tutors as they work with beginning readers. Video data show how first-grade teachers…

In this article, the author describes G. Reid Lyon, the director of the branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development that sponsors studies on reading, whom crisscrossed the country to herald the findings of scientific research on the subject and press for sweeping change in reading instruction. Lyon's presentations on the…

Reading development is said to progress in a series of developmental skills and stages that need to be acquired by emerging young readers. The literature on Greek braille reading and its development found that print readers opt for the same text decoding strategy even at the initial stages of development. This article explores the development of…

US government mandates to implement intensive phonics instruction in elementary classrooms invoke an alleged scientific superiority of this approach over more meaning-centered models. But curiously absent from this scientific enterprise is a study of the phonics system itself. Advocates of intensive phonics have not demonstrated that the commonly…

A total of 46 children in Grades 2 and 3 with low word-level skills were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 groups that received supplemental phonics-based reading instruction. One group received intervention October through March (21.5 hours), and one group served as a control from October through March and later received intervention March through May…

Taking a psycholinguistic approach, this paper presents an overview of vocabulary and word identification instruction. Sources for instructional procedures are discussed rather than detailed suggestions for teaching procedures. Five approaches to word identification are examined: sight vocabulary development, phonic analysis, structural analysis,…

This book is concerned with the skill of learning to read and factors primarily related to teaching the beginning reading skills. The contents include: "Rationale," which discusses abilities related to reading, reading as a different medium, decoding coming before reading, decoding as separate from reading, hypotheses for decoding, and a…

A word attack program that begins with phonics and incorporates various aspects of a linguistics approach is described in this paper. Regardless of the material that is used, there are 13 consonant sounds which are easier to learn than others: b, d, j, f, k, p, t, l, m, n, r, v, and z. W and h would be introduced next because in isolation they…

Shows how "concept of definition" (CD) instruction (instruction which organizes conceptual information into categories, properties, and illustrations) can be applied to content area reading. Presents several lessons and activities which develop strategies for combining new text information with prior knowledge and for self-monitoring…