Argues that, although the "at-risk" label when applied to African-American students is often appropriate, assumptions of intellectual deficiency attached to the phrase are mistaken. Socioeconomic factors are more likely determinants of the early reading difficulties encountered disproportionately by these students. Suggests strategies…

A review of research identified features characteristic of effective reading programs, especially explicit phonics instruction integrated with vocabulary of student reading materials. Analysis of several commercially published first-grade basal reading programs found significant discrepancies between strategies supported by the literature and the…

The increasing demand for improved student performance in the context of significant time constraints places considerable stress on educators and administrators to develop innovative strategies that promote literacy acquisition. This article describes the procedures and outlines the evaluative data for Reading Their Way, a literacy acquisition…

A study was conducted to shed light on the influence which children's developmental stage in learning to read and the reading instruction they receive have on first-graders' reading concepts. The study provided descriptive information to answer the following questions: (1) Do children from literature-based and skill-based instructional settings…

Drawing on an array of research on the nature and development of reading proficiency, this book argues that educators need not remain trapped in the phonics versus teaching-for-meaning dilemma and offers instructional alternatives. The book proposes that phonics can work together with the whole language approach to reading and provides an…

Academic testing observed in a year-long study of kindergarten classes in 15 districts was primarily concerned with whether children were succeeding with the content of a basal reader readiness workbook that essentially dealt with phonics. Such success was viewed as a prerequisite for the first preprimer in the basal series, the use of which…

This research review on basic reading skills begins with an historical perspective on reading methods, followed by an overview of reading instruction methods for the general population. Research findings are presented on several instructional methods, including phonetic, linguistic, artificial orthography, basal reading, and language experience…

The teacher's guide accompanies the student-reader workbook of "Nashdoi." Organized in the same format as the "Ch'al" and "Chaa" books, "Nashdoi" builds on the vocabulary introduced in those two readers. The consonant "x," 14 new vowel environments, 7 new diphthong environments, and 102 new words are introduced. This teacher's guide is organized…

The dependence of reading on speech is based on three assumptions: speech is the primary language system, acquired naturally without direct instruction; alphabetic writing systems are more or less phonetic representations of oral language; and speech appears to be an essential foundation for the acquisition of reading ability. By presupposing…

The research described in this report is the first part of an attempt to study the development of both overall reading ability and verbal encoding efficiency in an effort to see how the two are related. The report proposes a theory of prerequisite or hierarchical relationships and suggests that there may be differences between performance of a…

THIS STUDY EVALUATED THE EFFECTS OF A BASAL READER PROGRAM, A MODIFIED LINGUISTIC APPROACH, AND A LINGUISTIC READER PROGRAM AS MEASURED BY THE READING ACHIEVEMENT OF 469 CHILDREN IN 21 CLASSES AT THE END OF FIRST GRADE. ACHIEVEMENT COMPARIONS WERE ALSO MADE ON THE BASES OF (1) SEX, (2) INTELLIGENCE, AND (3) RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN READING READINESS…

A volume of "The Dimensions in Early Learning Series," this monograph explores beginning reading. The introduction defines reading, and chapters I and II review reading development and discuss theory and hierarchy of reading development. How to evaluate reading achievement, ways to teach reading, and what parents can do to help are subjects…

This study describes a program designed at Stanford University in the computer-assisted instruction (CAI) of reading, which has been used by children in kindergarten through grade three. The program is an adjunct to classroom instruction, stressing the decoding aspect of reading and leaving the communication aspect to the teacher. The report…

A series of articles with the chief emphasis on phonics as a means of analyzing words is presented. Various articles pertain to elementary, secondary, and college level instruction. The first of the five parts into which the volume is divided is comprised of a single article which gives an excellent overview of the field of word recognition. Part…

This kit presents the "Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing (LiPS) Program for Reading, Spelling, and Speech," a program designed to promote the development of an oral-motor, visual, and auditory feedback system that enables all students, including students with learning disabilities, to prove the identity, number, and order of phonemes in…