There is a widespread consensus in the research community that reading instruction in English should first focus on teaching letter (grapheme) to sound (phoneme) correspondences rather than adopt meaning-based reading approaches such as whole language instruction. That is, initial reading instruction should emphasize systematic phonics. In this…

A large body of research supports the conclusion that early reading instruction in English should emphasize phonics, that is, the teaching of grapheme-phoneme correspondences. By contrast, we argue that instruction should be designed to make sense of spellings by teaching children that spellings are organized around the interrelation of…

It is argued that a more comprehensive, systematic understanding of the nature of the alphabet, its three identities (letters/graphemes, letters/nomenemes, sounds/phonemes), and their specific functions in the teaching of various language skills and subskills should be an integral part of the language arts curriculum and instructional plan,…

Tagmemic theory, with its insistence on the necessity of three perspectives--particle, wave, and field--can be used to provide a more accurate statement of a contrastive analysis of phonemes in two languages. Examples illustrate how teachers can use these three perspectives in their work. (CB)