A study examined the role of phonics instruction in beginning reading and culminated in a report which has been published as a book entitled "Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning about Print." The study centered around the debate over whether phonics instruction promotes or impedes development of the attitudes and abilities required…

The language experience approach is a reading methodoloy that is highly organized, highly structured, and very systematic, but that allows teachers to teach without texts. It is a multiple, variegated set of activities designed to serve one purpose, namely, the instructional use of pupil's own language. As such, there are five interrelated aspects…

The purpose of this document is to provide a step-by-step outline of the language experience approach. It first explains this technique for teaching both words and sentences to beginning readers. Steps are outlined first for teaching words, then for teaching sentences. What to do and what to say is suggested for each step. Teaching words includes…

Reflecting an intensified concern for good educational research on instruction, the papers in this collection demonstrate the growing awareness of and sensitivity to the classroom environment by reading researchers. The 51 articles, selected from those presented at the 1981 meeting of the National Reading Conference, are divided into the following…

A study examined whether the use of a listening station (comprised of books on tapes) would have a positive effect upon the reading interest of first graders. Subjects, 18 first grade children who were randomly selected from three reading groups in a suburban community school, were equally divided into an experimental and a control sample. While…

This paper surveys methods for teaching reading and writing in kindergarten. The paper stresses the importance of accepting a child's own efforts, including invented spelling, and providing an atmosphere that encourages experimentation. Chapter 1 introduces the topic; chapter 2 provides a historical overview. The current state of the art is…

A study examined the relationship between sex differences and the development of reading proficiency, specifically investigating if sex differences related to achievement on measures of silent reading comprehension, sight vocabulary, recognition of vocabulary in context, and use of structural analysis in word recognition taken separately or in…

In light of research confirming the important effects of parents' literacy skills on their children's eventual acquisition of literacy skills, a project was undertaken in the Altoona Area School District in Blair County, Pennsylvania, to provide basic literacy training to a group of Head Start parents who were unable to read and who were not…

The student reader-workbook, third part of the "Chaa'" series, presents activities for the student to do orally and in writing. Pages are divided into four frames with the intention of completing each frame before continuing to the next frame in sequence. To allow children an opportunity to decode words at an early age, the code emphasis (phonics)…

Beginning first grade readers were able to successfully transfer from a structured programed approach to an individualized approach to reading. (JH)

Compilation of a list of the most common phrases used in reading was begun with the rationale that the quick recognition of phrases would facilitate reading comprehension. These first efforts showed that categorizing phrases by parts of speech did not provide acceptable levels of accuracy. The system that was effective, however, used a computer…

This study examined the relationship between the oral language fluency of different socioeconomic status (SES) children entering first grade and their success in learning to read, as measured at the end of the school year. Complete data were obtained from 27 upper, 24 middle, and 23 lower SES level students. Oral language samples were recorded in…

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,…

Greater understanding of reading can come about only after more basic reading research has been accomplished. Basic research should focus on what constitutes good reading, which means that the type of research that will identify characteristics of good reading must be a detailed assessment of variable effects on reading behaviors (not whether…

Recent research has confirmed that hemispheric patterns of dominance are related to reading skills. Reading is more complex than speech because it includes a visuo-spatial element. In the great majority of people, the left hemisphere deals with speech and sequencing skills. Visual matching of printed words requires the spatial skills of the right…