Provides opinions of five eminent educators on a variety of issues in literacy education including phonics, emergent literacy, reading and writing relationships, whole language, and defining literacy. (MG)

Revisits the literacy development of two at-risk first graders who participated in Reading Recovery for one semester, but who responded to the instruction in very different ways. Rethinks beliefs about effective instruction concerning four instructional issues: phonics and phonemic awareness, text selection, the use of context clues, and the issue…

Shows that mentally handicapped preschool children can learn to read words when word cards become tools for communicating their wishes. Indicates also that language skills improve and that these transfer to other situations. (FL)

Describes a program that associates phonics instruction with children's earliest reading and writing, using the ERIS method to teach sound/letter correspondences and to provide opportunities for writing and reading. (NKA)

Examines the Decoding Skills Test (DST), a criterion referenced, diagnostic instrument designed to identify deficiencies in word decoding. (JC)

Reports on a nationwide survey of instructional beliefs and practices of elementary public school teachers. Finds that teachers generally do not assume a polar, either/or approach to phonics and whole language, but instead provide children a balanced eclectic program involving both reading skill instruction and immersion in enriched literacy…

Concludes that three experimental programs were more effective than traditional approaches in beginning reading instruction: (1) a literature program using special decoding strategies, (2) a literature program not using the special strategies, and (3) a traditional basal approach using the special decoding strategies. (FL)

Six contributors suggest ways to (1) improve handwriting, (2) help children choose reading materials, (3) develop sight vocabulary, (4) use phonics with ESL learners, (5) use Uninterrupted Sustained Silent Reading, and (6) teach reading comprehension. (FL)

Shows that, despite the pendulum swings from the 1930s to the present, reading-achievement levels have remained constant, and one-third of children do not learn to read well. Argues that reading is a multidimensional activity, and that a massive effort is needed to implement multidimensional curricula that empower all children by providing them…

Describes the following teaching ideas: note writing; books supplementing a unit on measuring; parents' activities calendars; quick phonics inventory; map reading; language experience chart stories; predicting activities with titles; summer mail for learning disabled students; role playing; teaching guides for novels; sentence transformation; and…