Literature related to orthography, phonology, and reading is reviewed and synthesized in order to develop a rationale for a "goodness of fit" hypothesis. This hypothesis asserts that a writing system which is more consistently fit to the phonological structure of a particular language is more likely to facilitate learning to read.…

The 11 papers that were read at the Pittsburgh conference on the theory and practice of beginning reading are examined in this document. The papers and the state of the art are reviewed under five topical divisions, including developmental and processing stages, the nature of codes, cognitive control in reading, individual differences, and program…

Comments about the 11 papers presented at the June 1976 Pittsburgh conference on the theory and practice of beginning reading instruction are presented in this paper. In surveying these presentations, the paper discusses four content areas: particular theories about the reading process; problems in learning to read of poor, retarded, bilingual,…

The use of words in isolation, words with pictures, and words in sentence context in teaching word recognition to beginning readers was studied in a sample of 54 boys and 54 girls. These 108 pupils were randomly assigned to the three treatment groups; each child was individually taught the target words. Learning was assessed on five dependent…

This paper is a discursive presentation of results of an examination of comprehension instruction provided by widely used basal reader series. Focusing on selections in the first three grades of the 1976 Houghton Mifflin Reading Series, the analyses looked at the sorts of selections the students are asked to read, at the amount of text which they…

This book describes the step-by-step procedures of a program for reading, writing, and spelling. First published in 1972, it has been revised and expanded so that not only teachers but also parents and other interested adults can use the prescribed sequential lesson plans for one-to-one reading and spelling instruction. Stressing a positive…

Research supported by the Cooperative Research Program of the U.S. Office of Education, CRP-S-378.

Guidelines for parents involved in teaching their children to read are provided in this Australian early childhood resource booklet. Suggestions are offered for introducing words to children, talking to children, and reading to children. Material focused on the topic of learning to read at home is divided into two sections: (1) reading games, and…

To establish criteria for the selection of appropriate reading materials for adult beginning readers, a study was conducted to determine such readers' instructional level and ability to answer literal and higher level questions in three types of materials: narrative, familiar content, and unfamiliar content. Twenty-one adult learners reading at…