To adult readers directional movement seems natural, because adults have mastered this aspect of the reading process, and it is quite automatic. For some children, directional behavior can be very complex. Such was the case for one bright little boy ("Chance") the author/educator served in Reading Recovery. This article tells the story…

Intended for teachers of grades K-2, this book is a practical resource manual designed to provide step-by-step suggestions for assessing and instructing students' phonics skills and strategies. It presents phonological awareness as a foundation and preparation for phonics instruction and integrates the two so they become reciprocal. In addition,…

The Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) has administered the Early Literacy Intervention Grant Program (ELIGP) since 1997. During the first 3 years of the program, about half of the state's elementary schools received funding through ELIGP, either through Reading Recovery or Other Early Literacy Interventions (OELI). This report summarizes the…

Noting that the role of phonics in reading and writing has become as much a political issue as it has an educational one, this pamphlet offers a position statement regarding the role of phonics in a total reading program. It begins with three assertions regarding phonics and the teaching of reading: (1) the teaching of phonics is an important…

An intense debate exists around the most beneficial and successful method for teaching young children how to read. On the one side is sight-reading or the look-say method which promotes learning to read by immediate recognition of words learned through "memorization." In contrast to the sight method, the phonics method aims at teaching…

Primary-grade children can learn rhythm and rhyme from nursery rhymes. But those same poems can be used to help young students make connections to letters, sounds, and word chunks. This lesson lets Mother Goose help children grow as readers and writers. During the 5-10 minutes per day for these lessons, students will: develop a feel for the rhythm…

This report, the sixth in a series developed by the Education Commission of the States (ECS) examining the impact of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act 2001, discusses Reading First, which replaces the Reading Excellence Act. The report states that Reading First, a voluntary program, aims at having all children achieve reading proficiency by the…

At a literacy conference in December 1998, British Prime Minister Tony Blair defined phonics as "the skilled process of teaching children how the 44 sounds in the English language are represented by a letter or group of letters." But 4 years down the track, several recent reports from both national and international bodies continue to…

The teaching of phonics, the relationship of sounds to letters in an alphabetic language like English, is important for success in learning to read competently. Noting that there continues to be much debate as to what constitutes good phonics instruction, this paper presents a rather simple but basically sound and inexpensive approach for teaching…

Indiana's Early Intervention Grant Program (EIGP) provides funding for Reading Recovery and other early interventions focused on improvement in early reading programs (Grades 1-5). This resource guide provides information that schools in Indiana can use to plan for proposals for EIGP and other grant programs, such as comprehensive school reform…

There is a convergence of research evidence pointing to the critical role good phonics decoding skills play in good reading; however, there is no convergence in the research on precise development of reading strategies or on types, intensity, or duration of appropriate phonics instruction. Five unscientific assertions are often cited in phonics…

Recommends the association of teachers and children in teacher education courses to get to know each other by working together, not as teachers and pupils, but as learners together. (Author/RB)

Presents i.t.a. in a way that enables a teacher to learn the i.t.a. code individually and describes i.t.a. on the basis of American pronunciation. (TO)

Discusses what studies of i.t.a. throughout the past eleven years have revealed for teachers and researchers in the field of reading. (TO)

Discusses the difficulties children have in learning traditional orthography in reading instruction and presents the English-Unifon Alphabet as a solution, citing five advantages of using this single sound-symbol system. (RB)