Presents current research about how children learn to read and addresses the implications of this body of research for instruction. Aids educators in reflecting upon their present instructional practices to ascertain whether they coincide with findings from existing research. (MG)

Attempts to enhance classroom teachers' awareness of potential problems that can result when discrepancies exist between children's entry schema and the schema which undergirds the school's instructional program. Discuses a case study of a child who became at risk for reading failure when a mismatch developed between the child's internalized…

Three experiments on vowel decoding involving primary school children partially tested an interactive model of reading acquisition. The model suggests that children begin learning to read by establishing orthographic recognition units for words that have phonological underpinning that is initially at the onset-rime level but that becomes…

Describes LETTERLAND, a unique teaching model that blends a structured phonics approach with whole-language teaching and is widely used in British classrooms as an initial approach to literacy as well as in special needs contexts. (HTH)

Examined relationships between teachers' perceptions of literacy acquisition and kindergartners' involvement in literacy events and the quality and quantity of classroom literacy materials. Teacher interviews and classroom observations indicated that children in emergent literacy classrooms participated in significantly more literacy events than…

This article presents a five-step sequence for teaching children with disabilities to read pictures. Steps are sequenced for content and complexity of picture, student response requirement, and language demands. They include: (1) identify person, (2) identify object, (3) identify person and object, (4) identify action, and (5) identify sequence.…

As the phonics/whole-language debate continues, a method called "whole-part-whole" provides a balanced conceptual framework for thinking about and planning skills instruction. It addresses the need for teaching that is grounded in fundamental understandings about whole texts (stories, informational books, and poems), allows for indepth…

Discusses how Montessori principles and practices pertain specifically to the indirect and direct preparation of the child for writing and reading. The general principles are outlined first, followed by a specific discussion relating Montessori's approach to language instruction to current issues in reading disability. (CR)

Presents word building activities to boost elementary students' decoding skills. Building Toward a Secret Word helps K-3 students learn decoding skills by building words from the letters in one secret word. Sort Words, Transfer Sounds has students in grades 1-3 use sounds from words they know to figure out new words that rhyme. (SM)

Describes a multisensory reading program for teaching beginning reading to general education students. The program's main feature is that students learn to read by seeing, hearing, saying, and signing words. Pretesting and posttesting of participating kindergartners indicated that signing greatly enhanced the ability of hearing students to retain…

Notes that multimedia computer programs may provide promising opportunities for the training of initial reading and spelling skills. Examines a recently-developed program's efficacy and impact on the motivation of the users. Finds that the amount of non-task directed behavior of those who had practiced with the computer significantly decreased…

Discusses how the author, a second-/third-grade bilingual teacher, uses miscue analysis to plan reading strategy instruction that meets each individual child's needs by building on each one's strengths as a reader, in both their first and second languages. Appends a description of buddy reading. (SR)

Start Making a Reader Today (SMART) is a book and reading program for children in kindergarten through second grade in 13 Oregon counties. The program aims to create a relaxed and safe environment in which children can practice their skills, one-on-one, with caring adult volunteers. A volunteer tutor recounts her experiences with the program. (SAS)

A successful reading program is a broad-based personalized program that recognizes that reading is a mixture of various skills: phonemic awareness, grapho-phonemic correspondence, word analysis and synthesis, sight-word vocabulary, syntactic knowledge, semantic knowledge, and literary knowledge. Changes in instructional techniques are made based…

Describes how the authors establish the groundwork and the practice of literature circles in their primary classrooms. Describes how they redefine reading to allow all students to think of themselves as readers from the start. Describes the crucial role of talking and listening. Describes what shape literature circles take. Notes that this kind of…