Nursery rhymes and written phonics used in a meaningful context are valuable teaching methods which can be applied in a whole language classroom or in conjunction with a basal reading program. Because nursery rhymes are rooted in oral tradition they lend themselves to oral presentation. They provide forms for the oral beginnings of the best of…

Describes letterbox lessons in which children learn the alphabetic code, spelling words by placing letters in boxes that show the number of phonemes in words, and later reading what they have spelled. Discusses materials, how to teach a letterbox lesson, and effectiveness of these lessons. (SR)

Describes word-learning activities for first graders, devised to help at-risk readers make discoveries about the alphabetic system. Discusses why these discoveries are important for students' progress in learning to read and spell. (SR)

Describes how primary teachers can use decoding strategies within a literature-based, whole-language setting. A three-stage approach involves the book stage (real reading), the word stage (learning words), and the letter-sound stage (learning sounds). The article provides sample activities. (SM)

Intended to discourage classroom reading teachers from relying on "phonics instruction" as a remedy for students' inadequate reading performance, this pamphlet presents reasons why phonics drills should not be taught at all in the classroom and offers a set of practical phonic awareness activities to help poor readers overcome reading…