Intended to provide a publication outlet for systematic and substantive reviews and syntheses, both empirical and theoretical, and for integrative reports of programatic research, this volume focuses on what children learn when learning to read, and how this learning can be facilitated. The first chapter of the volume offers an analysis of writing systems and their influence on learning to read. By contrasting alphabetic with nonalphabetic writing systems, this chapter provides fresh insights into the question of what must be learned while learning to read and the problems children encounter when learning to read English. The second chapter critically evaluates several practices and programs currently employed to instruct novice readers in learning the print-to-speech mode, in developing decoding automaticity, and in comprehending what they read. The third chapter analyzes the content of a number of widely used school reading texts, in light of current research on factors that affect reading acquisition, and the fourth chapter proposes a framework for designing and evaluating effective reading programs. (HTH)