Reflects on the 30th anniversary of the publication of the "First-Grade Studies." States that what can be learned is that "It all depends" is the most effective approach to teaching reading and that pretty much any alternative method was superior to the "look-say" basals popular in the early 1960s. (PA)

Reviews the "First-Grade Studies." Finds the studies represent a particular ideological and power relationship within the academy; cooperative research efforts can be a powerful force in shaping understanding of reading research and instruction; there is no best way to teach beginning reading; race, class, and language are important variables in…

Examines the extent to which preschool children are aware of and acquire the phonemic structure of the spoken word. Tests 4-year-old nonreaders, assessing product name reading ability, knowledge of the alphabet, rhyme skills, and explicit phonemic awareness ability. Finds subjects acquired knowledge of the alphabet before they showed explicit…

Examines growth of word reading skills in first- and second-grade Italian children by analyzing the pattern of reading errors. Tailors the selection of reading material to permit a meaningful cross-language comparison with pre-existing findings on English-speaking children. Finds that, in English and Italian, spatially related errors constituted a…

Presents three examples of how basal reading programs miss opportunities to build word and world knowledge: lack of focus on systematically building essential knowledge and vocabulary during teacher read-alouds and discussions aimed at building background knowledge; wasting time by including too many lessons on formal reading comprehension skills;…

Followed beginning readers to examine phonological skill influences. Found segmentation strongly correlated with attainment in reading and spelling at end of first year. Also found that letter name knowledge predicted both reading and spelling skill and showed interactive effect with segmentation. Finally, found that by end of second year, rhyming…

Explains that shared reading uses a familiar text to help children engage in the act of reading even before they can independently decode words. Describes how it works in a kindergarten classroom within a balanced literacy curriculum and the teacher's role in its effective use. (PA)

Describes the benefits of effective reading instruction for at-risk children at the preschool, kindergarten, and first grade levels. Notes that early reading delays are quickly magnified as children move through the early grades. Asserts that public education is the fundamental equalizer in the United States and that it enables children from poor…

Considers how public opinion and entire theories of teaching reading are based in the false Just So story--Just Sound Out, and you can read. Explains why sounding out is a handicap. Suggests a better alternative, teaching by recognizing words. (SG)

This short-term longitudinal study examined performance of 5- and 6-year-olds in early stages of reading on three phonological awareness tasks. Findings indicated that measures of phoneme awareness were the best concurrent and longitudinal predictors of reading skill, with onset-rime skills making no additional predictive contribution once…

Notes that preceding commentaries raise several issues, including which variables need to be controlled to demonstrate a specific relationship between phoneme-level skills and reading ability and whether prereaders can perform phonemic awareness tasks. Maintains that none of the commentaries casts doubt on the basic conclusion that phonemic-level…

Outlines the following teaching strategies to improve the reading fluency of beginning readers: paired reading, echo reading, mumble reading, chanting lists or stories, repeated and choral readings, memorization tasks, and phrase boundary marking. (MM)

Documents children's acquisition of the following critical aspects of alphabet knowledge: letter recitation, naming, printing, and association of letters with sounds and words. Finds that performance improved with age and at different rates for different tasks. Finds no sex differences. (SR)

A group of 30 nonreading kindergarten children who received 7 weeks of instruction in phoneme segmentation and letter names/sounds were assessed on segmentation and reading measures. They outperformed a language activities group, which received instruction in letter names/sounds and additional language activities, and a group receiving no…

The study compared the effectiveness and efficiency of concurrent and isolation-intermix instruction in teaching four preschool children to read common words in their environment. Concurrent instruction resulted in students learning conditional discriminations in fewer trials and minutes of instructional time suggesting the value of teaching…