The purpose of this study was to investigate to what extent the knowledge of letter names, letter sounds, or the combination of both facilitates the acquisition of word recognition ability. Forty-eight first graders were pretested and posttested on their knowledge of letter names and sounds, and measures of auditory and visual discrimination…

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)

An extensive case history of instructional environment and acquisition of reading skills by 50 first-grade students in ten classrooms indicates that the rate at which students mastered decoding depended on classroom instruction with direct instruction appearing most profitable for children from low-socioeconomic backgrounds. (MKM)

Research suggests New Zealand has the biggest gap between its highest and lowest achievers, and this is known as the "long tail". The debate over whole language and phonics approaches to reading is unfinished, but must now focus on where the point of difference lies. While reading involves a range of skills, teachers need to model the…

The materials included in this manual are organized according to the Indiana's Kindergarten Academic Standards for English/Language Arts. In each section teachers will find: (1) Indiana's Kindergarten Academic Standards for English/Language Arts Assessments: Black Line Masters of diagnostic/practice pages for skill areas, checklists, and rubrics;…

A study examined whether or not high school teachers could name or list the reading skills needed by their students. The three skills categories were comprehending expository text, understanding content area vocabulary, and applying word analysis skills. The questions used to elicit information from teachers were (1) What must students do to…

Forty-six first-grade teachers' manuals and workbooks from three basal reading series published in the 1930s, 1950s, and 1970s were examined for differences in the amount of material devoted to word-attack skills. Word-attack skills were defined as the use of phonic and structural analysis for successfully attacking unrecognized words. Results…

This study compared the rapid word processing abilities of groups of students in college, fourth grade, second grade, and kindergarten to see if there is a developmental pattern in such skill development, and to see if phonics training should emphasize either letters and the orthographic rules that create words or letter clusters (common words)…

An instructional program that teaches decoding skills to learning disabled children was developed to serve as a supplement to whatever reading program is used in the classroom. As a result of task analysis, the program's instructional sequence begins with auditory tasks analyzing syllables and short words into phonemes, then blending these…

Teachers were trained in either or both of two versions of Effective Classroom Management--Junior High (ECM). In the second year of the study, teachers were taught techniques in discipline, communication, and self-esteem enhancement. The goals of the in-service training were to make teachers more responsive to students' affective and cognitive…

Developed and coordinated by the Bureau of Reading Education of the New York State Education Department, Project Alert is a statewide inservice program to facilitate instituting or improving the diagnostic-prescriptive approach to reading instruction. As part of this program, a reading resource kit was prepared by the bureau to give structure and…

A committee of Oklahoma educators prepared this reading activity guide as an aid for elementary school teachers to improve their students' reading skills. Described for each activity are the objective, necessary materials, and the procedure. For many activities, a variation or variations also are suggested. The activities are arranged in the…

The purpose of this study was to compare the ability to pronounce synthetic words of children who learned to read by methods emphasizing early, intensive phonics instruction with the ability of children who learned to read by methods utilizing delayed and less intensive phonics instruction. The sample was selected from among second, third, and…

Used participant observation, child interviews, and teacher meetings to examine reading strategies that emerged in a first-grade, multiethnic, urban classroom over 20 weeks. Found that children used five reading strategies, including narrative storytelling, relying on memory, and word-for-word reading; tensions emerged between strategies that…

"Decodable text" devotees say phonics is scientifically superior to the whole-language approach, which supposedly lacks research validation. However, 60 years of research supports holistic, literature-based approaches to literacy. Whole-language instruction is further validated by research on independent reading, cooperative learning, Reading…