This paper aims to offer a "fresh look" and to provide some further insights on teaching basic language skills with literature and composition-based "whole" language arts programs (this could include the Core Knowledge Foundation's literature), and on the time and attention this combination deserves in primary-level classrooms.…

By actively involving the child in hearing, saying, seeing, and writing the letters and sounds, this workbook develops a child's skill in recognizing the consonant sounds as well as the most important short and long vowels through a series of 52 lessons. It is appropriate for parents to use with their second- or third-grade children. By using this…

By actively involving the child in hearing, saying, seeing, and writing the letters and sounds, this workbook develops a child's skill in recognizing the alphabet and the initial sounds in words through a series of 78 lessons. It is appropriate for parents to use with their kindergarten and beginning first grade children. By using this learning…

By actively involving the child in hearing, saying, seeing, and writing the letters and sounds, this workbook develops a child's skill in recognizing consonant sounds as well as the most important short and long vowels through a series of 70 lessons. It is appropriate for parents to use with advanced first grade children. By using this learning…

The purpose of this digest is to review various interpretations of balanced reading instruction and to explore the relationship between this instructional approach to beginning reading and state reading standards. Sections of the digest address what balanced reading is, offer examples from classroom practice, and discuss reading instruction and…

Reviews the research on the initial teaching alphabet (i/t/a), the sources of conflict and misunderstanding involving its use, and its future in reading instruction. (FL)

Shows two major handicaps in the anti-phonics movement which suggest that the future of the movement is doubtful: (1) the demonstrable weakness in both the theory and method of anti-phonics; (2) the increasing confidence that publishes and editors of widely used basal readers are placing in phonics. (BF/JH)

Considers how public opinion and entire theories of teaching reading are based in the false Just So story--Just Sound Out, and you can read. Explains why sounding out is a handicap. Suggests a better alternative, teaching by recognizing words. (SG)

Discusses two questions concerning entering first graders' abilities in language awareness: what are the connections from skills knowledge to beginning reading for these children; and what additional skills or experiences are needed that will help these children move toward reading on their own? (NH)

Reviews research on the question of how to best teach letter-sound correspondences in beginning reading instruction. Describes a new, child-friendly, research-based way of teaching letter-sound correspondences to English- and Spanish-speaking children, which is not only explicit, systematic, and extensive, but also context embedded and meaningful.…

Replicates a study of a "common unit" task which includes modifications to the original procedure. Confirms the pattern observed in the original study: beginning readers learning by a mixed method can identify shared phonemes but not shared rimes in the common unit task. Discusses implications. (RS)

Discusses the implications of Goswami and Bryant's (1990) theory about important causal connections in reading for classroom teaching, and reviews more recent "rhyme and analogy" research within this framework. Discusses new research on the nature of the English spelling system and the representation of linguistic knowledge. Emphasizes the…

Describes one teacher's unhappiness with the teaching situation because of the school district's recent adoption of a systematic intense phonics instruction program that every K-3 teacher is required to use with every child via whole group instruction. Argues for the importance of whole language instruction. (SG)

This primer supplies systematic basic phonics material for learning how to read, to be put into the hands of children. The primer includes instructions for the teacher, but it assumes that the user also has read either the book, "How the Alphabet Works," or the matching pamphlet, "Systematic Basic Phonics," which is included in the back of the…