Attempts to justify the place of real books in the beginning reading curriculum, and to suggest teaching strategies for the development of a multi-cue approach to reading. (RS)

Describes ten learning activities, contributed by a group of teachers, that deal with such areas as phonics; word attack and spelling skills; and powers of observation, listening, and recall. (GT)

Contends that children need to learn phonic skills, not necessarily through early direct teaching, but through reading experience. Suggests using Paired Reading, which is validated by psycholinguistic reading theory and provides opportunities to learn to read from context and use innate syntactic and semantic knowledge. (SKC)